From Leningrad to Hungary: Notes of a Red Army Soldier, 1941-1946

FROM LENINGRAD TO HUNGARY This book is a chronological narrative of the experiences of Evgenii Moniushko, who lived th...

Author: Evgenii D. Moniushko

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FROM LENINGRAD TO HUNGARY

This book is a chronological narrative of the experiences of Evgenii Moniushko, who lived through and survived the first year of the siege of Leningrad and who served as a junior officer in the Red Army during the last 18 months of war and the first year of the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia and Hungary. As such, it provides an intensely human view of daily army life both in combat and garrison duty, and unique perspectives on the conditions he and other junior officers and common soldiers endured while in army service. Evengii D. Moniushko is a native of the city of Leningrad. As a teenager, Moniushko was evacuated and conscripted into the army, and served as a lieutenant in a tank destroyer artillery regiment along the Vistula River in late 1944. Later, he served as an artillery forward observer during the fighting in Silesia and Czechoslovakia from March through May 1945, and was demobilized in 1946 while serving in the Southern Group of Forces in Hungary. David M. Glantz has been described as the West’s foremost expert on the military aspects of the Red Army’s performance in the Great Patriotic War. A graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and the University of North Carolina, he is the founder and former director of the US Foreign Military Studies Office, Combined Arms Command, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Founder and editor of the Journal of Slavic Military Studies, he has written and edited numerous books on Soviet and Russian military affairs.

SOVIET (RUSSIAN) MILITARY EXPERIENCE Series Editor: David M. Glantz

This series focuses on Soviet military experience in specific campaigns or operations. 1. FROM THE DON TO THE DNEPR, SOVIET OFFENSIVE OPERATIONS, DECEMBER 1942 TO AUGUST 1943 David M. Glantz 2. THE INITIAL PERIOD OF WAR ON THE EASTERN FRONT, 22 JUNE–AUGUST 1941 David M. Glantz 3. THE SOVIET INVASION OF FINLAND, 1939–40 Carl Van Dyke 4. THE SOVIET PARTISAN MOVEMENT 1941–1944 Edited and with a foreword by David M. Glantz Leonid Grenkevich 5. RACE FOR THE REICHSTAG The 1945 battle for Berlin Tony Le Tissier 6. RUSSO-CHECHEN CONFLICT 1800–2000 A deadly embrace Robert Seely 7. FROM LENINGRAD TO HUNGARY Notes of a Red Army soldier, 1941–1946 Evgenii D. Moniushko, translated by Oleg Sheremet and edited by David M. Glantz 8. THE WINTER CAMPAIGN (NOV. 1942–MARCH 1943), VOL. IV Forgotten battles of the German-Soviet War David M. Glantz (forthcoming)

FROM LENINGRAD TO HUNGARY Notes of a Red Army soldier, 1941–1946

Evgenii D. Moniushko Translated by Oleg Sheremet Edited by David M. Glantz

First published 2005 by Frank Cass 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Frank Cass 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

This edition published in the Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Frank Cass is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2005 Evgenii D. Moniushko, translated by Oleg Sheremet and edited by David M. Glantz All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Moniushko, Evgenii D. From Leningrad to Hungary : notes of a Red Army soldier, 1941–1946 / Evgenii D. Moniushko ; edited and translated by David M. Glantz.—1st ed. p. cm.—(Soviet (Russian) military experience) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. World War, 1939–1945—Campaigns—Eastern Front. 2. World War, 1939–1945—Personal narratives, Soviet. 3. Moniushko, Evgenii D. I. Glantz, David M. II. Title. III. Series. D764.M634 2005 940.57⬘213⬘092—dc22

ISBN 0-203-32290-8 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-415-35000-X (hbk) ISBN 0-415-35067-0 (pbk)

CONTENTS

List of figures

vi

Introduction

1

DAVID M. GLANTZ

1

The beginning of the war: Nachalo voiny

2

In Siberia

45

3

Along the Vistula

89

4

In Silesia and Czechoslovakia during 1945

127

5

Demobilization

190

Index

249

v

3

FIGURES

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 1.10

1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5

People digging trenches A bomb shelter, which was almost identical to those built in all civil houses The house on the corner of the Kriukov channel and Ekaterinhof Prospect The conflagration at the Badaev food warehouses in September 1941 A house located on the corner of Malkin Avenue and the Griboiedov Canal An overall view of the Pioneers’ Palace building A view southward from the fire post situated at house no. 146 The extinguishing of an incendiary bomb on the roof of a residential building Leningrad 1941. A security [commandant’s] patrol on the streets We spent our shifts in the attics and on the roofs in this fashion during cold fall and winter nights waiting for the “All clear” signal The “burzhuika” metal stove that faithfully served us throughout siege during the winter of 1941–1942 A street in besieged Leningrad The Admiralty plant The type of boat produced by the 8th Factory Shop used to cross Lake Ladoga during 1942 Pleasure motor boats often served as auxiliary ships in the Ladoga Flotilla A map of Western Siberia and the Altai region Staro-Azhinka village in 1942 Inside Chirkov’s hut Work on a winnowing machine [kleiton] A grain dryer in the village of Staro-Azhinka vi

6 9 10 12 14 15 18 20 22

24 25 29 33 37 43 46 47 48 50 52

FIGURES

2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4

4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 5.1 5.2 5.3

A homemade manual mill constructed by the old man Konyshka, which has survived to this day The interior layout of the Tomsk Academy barracks, with a duty soldier present at his post Artillery pieces in the academy’s museum The academy’s crest To the Vistula front Soldiers’ native wit The hospital in Vasiurinskaia The “fashion house” at “Ust’-Labinskaia” A group photo at Evacuation Hospital no. 5456 in Labinskaia district [krai] on November 18, 1944 A telephone operator in a dugout shelter From Neisse to Waldenburg The area of operations during the second half of February 1945 (1:50,000 scale) The 2nd Battery, 9th Artillery Regiment’s forward OP near the town of Dankvic on the northern slope of Hill 188.1 on February 1, 1945 The relocation of the 2nd Battery, 9th Artillery Regiment’s observation post during the Upper Silesian operation The fighting for Gross-Briezen, March 15, 1945 “Go there, I don’t know where . . .” A battery observation post at Marksdorf during April 1945 The area of operations of the 2nd Battery, 9th Artillery Regiment in April and early May 1945 An observer correcting artillery fire from a forward observation post Red Army anti-tank troops and gun entering a German town A German Tiger tank destroyed by a Red Army self-propelled gun Red Army artillery in its firing position Red Army machine gunners opening fire on Germans in a building Red Army soldiers gathering at a grave of their fallen comrades The artillery battery on the move during the spring of 1945 The 9th Artillery Regiment’s area of operations at the beginning of the Prague operation The 9th Artillery Regiment’s movement from Czechoslovakia to Hungary My movements in Hungary The Gabor Aron Camp in Nagykanizsa, where the 113th Guards Rifle Division’s regiments were stationed vii

53 62 72 81 91 100 109 111 116 133 139 142

145 151 154 160 165 166 168 171 172 176 178 182 185 187 191 206 209

FIGURES

5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9

The 25th Artillery Penetration Division’s camps in Hungary A monument to Soviet soldiers in Nagykanizsa E. Moniushko (1) E. Moniushko and a comrade E. Moniushko (2) A monument to Soviet soldiers

viii

218 222 225 228 236 245

INTRODUCTION David M. Glantz

In terms of the scope, scale, and ferocity of the fighting, the staggering human and material costs incurred, as well as the impact it had on the course of the war as a whole, arguably no combat during the Second World War was more decisive than that which took place on the Soviet–German front. With the possible exception of the China theater, no theater of war exacted a greater human toll than the Soviet–German theater of war. As a gruesome measure of this conflict’s intensity, out of over 30 million Soviet soldiers who served in the Red Army during this immense struggle, well over 8.9 million perished on the field of battle or in German prisoner-of-war or labor camps. Tragically, while death prevented many Red Army soldiers from sharing their experiences with the generations that followed, the Soviet Union’s political system prevented most of the many millions of soldiers who survived the ordeal of war from telling their stories as well. Today, after passing decades have muted the voices of too many of these survivors, a precious few have finally overcome their own personal inhibitions and the pervasive political constraints restricting them from putting pen to paper to share their recollections of this terrible war with succeeding generations. To date, none has done so more eloquently than Evgenii Dmitrievich Moniushko, a young lad who began the war in the city of Leningrad, who survived the terrible siege of that city, and emerged at war’s end as a senior lieutenant in the victorious Red Army. Moniushko’s memories of his long personal hegira form an accurate, immensely personal, human, and often touching mosaic portraying civilian life in the wartime Soviet Union and military service in the Red Army during the war. Beginning with his grueling trials during the Germans’ siege of Lenin’s namesake city, Moniushko survived that cauldron of misery and death by escaping across the waters of Lake Ladoga on the famous “Road of Life” and became a refugee of war in distant Siberia. After reaching military age at mid-war, Moniushko was conscripted as an officer cadet in an artillery academy in Tomsk and, after his graduation, served a precarious and dangerous existence as a junior officer in an 1

INTRODUCTION

anti-tank artillery battalion along the Vistula River front during late 1944. Wounded, as so many millions of his fellow soldiers were, he recuperated in several Red Army hospitals and traveled extensively through the Soviet Union while on convalescent leave. Returning to the front in 1945, Moniushko served in an artillery division during the fighting in Silesia and Czechoslovakia, shared in the Red Army’s victory in May 1945, and ended the war performing garrison duty in post-war Czechoslovakia and Hungary until his demobilization in 1946. While his experiences encompassed virtually every conceivable aspect of a soldier’s life in the wartime Red Army, Moniushko’s keen memory, refreshing candor, and vivid powers of description provide readers with a captivating and credible account of those experiences while, in doing so, exposing enticing glimpses of the brutality and humanity that co-exist in the panorama of any war. Quite properly, Moniushko dedicates these memoirs to his many comrades who fought, died, or survived in the war. As such, the memoir indeed serves as a unique and fitting memorial to these soldiers’ selfless, if not always fully appreciated, service to their Fatherland. Carlisle, P.A. May 2004

2

1 THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR (Nachalo voiny)

The Vyritsa railroad station was located on the Vitebsk railroad line about 50 kilometers from Leningrad. That’s where the biological station of the Leningrad A.I. Gertsen [Herzen] Pedagogical Institute was located. Professor V.I. Arnold-Aliabiev was managing summer practice for the students of the Geography Department. I worked as a laboratory assistant for him – ensuring the equipment was ready for the classes, helping him conduct practical training, and managing the students’ shifts at the meteorological station. No less than half of the students in the group were men – not boys – grown men from various trades. One of them, a worker from a lumber company near Arkhangel’sk talked of his work with surprising interest and love: how to tie rafts, how to sort logs, what signals masters on a powersaw used to communicate. The students, especially the women, couldn’t understand how I was finding fake entries in the book of meteorological observations for the night shifts. They were convinced that I was secretly watching those on duty, but in reality the insufficient knowledge of the subject did not allow them, after missing a night shift, to put down at least a plausible fabrication. And so they would write “fog and 50 percent humidity” at the same time in the book! It was the third week of the practice. In the afternoon on June 22 rumors of war came from somewhere. Vyritsa was not that far from Leningrad, but neither the bio-station nor the surrounding houses had a radio, a broadcast-listening [-monitoring] station, or a telephone. It was only late in the night that the idea dawned on me to find something to listen to out in a resort several kilometers from our base. A group of students went to the resort. I went with them. The gates of the resort were locked, and the annoyed guard announced categorically: “What war – everyone’s asleep already!” The guys climbed over the fence. After some time, sleep was interrupted, a radio was turned on, people assembled around the loudspeaker. It was war! Several days passed. Our group decreased by more than half. Students 3

THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR

were vanishing one after another: some at the summons of a military commissariat, and others volunteered, without waiting for the summons. The Arkhangel’sk lumberjack was one of the first, but soon only girls remained. We set up 24-hour duty shifts at the bio-station, near the phone, which was connected to a temporary line that had been laid there. I was put on the duty roster because I was considered to be one of the station’s staff. Rather than attending classes, during the day-time we dug holes for protection against possible bombings. Then we received an order to halt the practice and close the base. The students left. I had to make several trips in the commuter train to evacuate all of the instruments. There weren’t a lot of them, but they were fragile and required cautious handling. Everything seemed familiar to the 1939–1940 period, the last time that war fever gripped the city [ed., The Soviet–Finnish War]. Strips of paper were glued crosswise to all of the windows of the city’s buildings. People with gas masks were on duty at every building entrance. There was no question of blackouts yet – even without lights, you could see everything during the summer’s white night. Otherwise, the city was calm. Although many walked along the streets with their gas masks in their hands, public transportation was working efficiently, the stores were full of merchandise, and a brisk trade went on at every street corner, where vendors sold carbonated water flavored with various kinds of fruity syrups. A heat wave began on June 22 – it was the first really hot day in Leningrad during that summer. Finally, we completed the evacuation of the equipment. I turned the stocks over to my temporary employer and settled the accounts. Now I had to bring our things from the dacha [country houses of various sizes “owned” by many Russian families], where my mother and brother Tolia were located at that time. The dacha was situated in Bol’shaia Izhora, west of Oranienbaum, and on the coast of the Gulf of Finland. We would usually bring many of our possessions to the dacha in a cargo taxi. However, now we didn’t have such a luxury since all of the cars, together with their drivers, had already been requisitioned for the army. Therefore, we had to transport our possessions by ourselves. This process took several trips. It was indeed an awkward feeling – we were busy with personal matters, while everyone around was preoccupied with the war. We worked for an entire day in Bol’shaia Izhora, picking wild carrot weeds in a kolkhoz [collective farm] field. During this time, from our perch on the high shore, we saw two or three very powerful explosions with bright flashes out in the sea. That was during the first few days of July when, in all likelihood, those explosions involved the ships en route from Tallinn Naval Base to Kronshtadt, which were blown up by mines. Back then, of course, we didn’t realize that. My mother and brother, who were with me in Bol’shaia Izhora on June 4


22, later told me about what had happened during the first night of the war. They had a good view of Kronshtadt (a major naval base in the Baltic just west of Leningrad) from the fields where we were working. They saw the air raids as well as the anti-aircraft fire from the ships and forts of Kronshtadt, but, at the time, they thought those were only exercises. The raid, however, was unsuccessful because the defenses were well prepared. During the first half of June, my brother and I, who, so far as I recall, were part of a group organized by our School No. 245, were sent to dig trenches south of Leningrad. We rode in commuter cars pulled by a steam locomotive, but as an unscheduled “special train.” We unloaded from the train at Veimarn Station near Kingisepp, which was on the Luga River about 110 kilometers southwest of Leningrad. Then we walked for about an hour. Our job was to dig an anti-tank ditch. The work schedule involved digging for eight hours and then resting for four hours right there on the ground. We ate some food, primarily bread and tinned meat, and then worked for eight hours again, and so on. The ditch we dug was approximately six meters wide and three meters deep and was triangular in shape across. Templates had been made from boards for us to check its exact dimensions. Even though they assembled a large group of people to do this work, it progressed very slowly since no one had any experience in such matters. Apparently, one of the teachers who served as the escort for our group had served in the army sometime in the past, since he was dressed in a semi-military uniform but without any insignia. Therefore, people constantly asked him various questions, seeking his expert advice. He waved them away, however, declaring that he wasn’t in the military, but was only a fireman. This caused doubt and suspicion. At midday on July 14, which was my birthday, an order was passed along the line of diggers from somewhere on the left. “Everyone is to assemble immediately,” it read, “and move toward the railroad.” Initially with some distrust, but then faster and faster, the people began to collect things that had been strewn about and started walking. A long line of people stretched from the trenches toward the railroad station. My brother and I walked along with everyone else, but since we knew about the possible air raids and what low-flying air attacks were all about, we tried to walk separately from the crowd, through the brush and woods parallel to the road but not along the road itself. We had packed our possessions into a traveling bag with shoulder straps (backpacks were still pretty rare in those days) and not in suitcases and bags like most of the other people. We seemed to attract everyone’s attention, probably because of our behavior and unique appearance. Therefore, on one occasion we were asked to show our papers. It’s a good thing my brother had his passport [internal] with him, because I didn’t have a passport yet due to my age. I reached the age of 16 years that very day. 5


Figure 1.1 People digging trenches. An anti-tank ditch constructed in the vicinity of Ivanovskoe, south of the city of Kingisepp in mid-July 1941 (drawn from memory by E. Moniushko).

At one point, we encountered soldiers running in one column after another through an unharvested wheat field. The soldiers waved at us, gesturing that we should walk faster, and then ran off in the opposite direction. A group of our SB bomber aircraft flew above us in the same direction. Flying over us at a low altitude, one of them suddenly broke apart in mid air as one of its wings separated from the fuselage. The plane and its wing fell separately, reaching the ground almost simultaneously. An explosion ripped the air but I didn’t see the cause. Perhaps the Germans were shooting at the plane from the ground, or perhaps one of their fighters had passed us by unseen. That was the first aircraft downed before my own eyes. Probably to reassure themselves, some of the people 6


who saw it claimed that the plane was German, but I knew aircraft silhouettes pretty well and was sure it was an SB. The train station finally appeared in the distance, but it was too risky to approach it. The locomotives that were parked there were sounding their air raid alarms with short and frequent whistles. Only late on the evening of July 14 did the uncoordinated groups of “diggers,” my brother and I among them, start making their way toward the station. Once there, we found a two-axle flatcar coupled to a locomotive, which aircraft technicians were using to transport several aircraft engines to Leningrad. We rode on this flatcar to a place where the local transportation system was still functioning. To the boundless joy of our mother and all of our relatives, we finally reached home at midday on July 15. They had been very worried about us, and not without good cause. There had been losses among our “diggers,” and, as I discovered after the war’s end, during a similar situation, the Germans captured Liusia Afansieva, one of my classmates, and she was not freed until after the war, when the Allies liberated her from a labor camp in Hamburg. After returning from our construction work near Veimarn, we also had to ride out to help construct the defense lines around the town of Strel’na, just west of Leningrad. This town was so close to Leningrad that today it is within the city’s limits. Once back in the city, we spent our nights performing sentry duty at our 245th School, which was situated on the Griboiedov Canal. Fedor Grigorevich Ivanov, the school’s military training instructor, was in charge of this security activity. A reserve officer, he was tall and somewhat roundshouldered, and when he walked, he did so with a strange gait by turning his soles outward. Possibly, this resulted from some disease or old war wounds. Not a young man, it is likely that he had served during the Civil War, and this was likely the reason why he had not been conscripted into the field army. Ivanov issued “weapons” to the students on duty, but only pneumatic rifles [BB-guns]. We were required to walk around the school building periodically – from the side of the street and back into the schoolyard. Our main task was to prevent light shining from the windows in case of an air raid. However, up to this point, not a single air raid had occurred. When I was not on duty at the school, I was on duty on the roof of our building, where I was serving as a member of a local air defense group the authorities had created. At this point, single German airplanes began appearing. Even though they did not drop any bombs, our anti-aircraft gunners fired at them and shell fragments sometimes fell on our roof. Although the roof was made from sheet metal, it provided no protection against these fragments. Therefore, I found an old cast-iron plate and decided to affix it under the roof’s beams. I barely had enough strength to lift it to its place and affix it with metal spikes, but once this was done, I now had a place to hide if the metal “rain” became dangerous. 7


During the long periods of my “attic” duty, I recalled the stories my mother and her brothers and sisters had related to me about the difficult times during the Civil War years, particularly about how “tough” it had been regarding both food and warmth. These stories convinced me that the approaching winter could also be difficult. Soon, the air raids became more frequent, and I had to spend a lot of time in the “attic.” So that I wouldn’t be wasting my time, I began making a metal stove – a “burzhuika” – out of the remnants of the sheet metal roofing materials left over from past repairs. This, my first ever experience with metal work, convinced me of the truth of the old proverb, “The eyes are afraid, but the hands just do it.” At first, since I was ashamed of the stove’s poor quality and was afraid of being accused of “alarmism,” I didn’t let anyone see my work. However, when I did haul it home, I was pleasantly surprised by the approval of my entire family. This “burzhuika” served us faithfully throughout the entire first winter of the upcoming siege. Although I was not yet a member of the KOMSOMOL [the Communist Party youth organization], I was assigned the task of participating in the inspection of residential buildings by the school’s KOMSOMOL organization. The people in charge of the city’s defense had ordered the district’s VLKSM [All-Leningrad KOMSOMOL] committees to supervise and carry out this work. Our specific task was to determine an accurate picture of free [unoccupied] or sparsely populated residential space so that reserve housing could be organized for the relocation of people whose homes had been destroyed during the enemy bombing raids. The existing residential registration data we possessed for this purpose was clearly inadequate. First of all, many of those who had left Leningrad for the summer had not yet returned to the city and, second, many Leningraders already had relatives and friends living with them who had fled from the western regions of the country. It is both noteworthy and significant that we began this work of accounting and preparing reserve living quarters even before a single bombing had occurred, or a single building had been destroyed. Good management requires accurate foresight, and the city’s leadership, the City Soviet [council], the city’s Communist Party organizations, and the military itself anticipated the ensuing events. In this regard, I should briefly mention the effort to construct bomb shelters. After returning to the city two weeks after the war began, it did not surprise me that the majority of buildings’ basements had already been converted into bomb shelters. Initially at least, I thought that this had been done very quickly and efficiently after June 22. However, in reality, this was not correct! The work on transforming basements into bomb shelters had already begun, based on an earlier order that set June 19 as the deadline. Within a short period of several days, the basements were cleansed of 8


Figure 1.2 A bomb shelter, which was almost identical to those built in all civil houses (drawn from memory by E. Moniushko).

rubbish and firewood (many buildings had furnace heating), windows were barricaded with bricks and metal, ceilings were propped up with log posts, doors, made of 15 centimeter-thick boards, were installed, covered with metal from both sides and fitted with benches and bunks, and water and sand for putting out fires were stockpiled. So, not only were the antiaircraft gunners prepared for the first air raid on the city, which took place on June 22 and was repelled, but the local air defense (MPVO) organization, which was now called “civil defense,” was also well prepared. I first encountered the subject of bomb shelter construction during early July in the memoirs of P. Luknitsky, who is one of the more conscientious and accurate chroniclers of the Siege of Leningrad. Although this work went on for some time, there is no doubt that the greatest number of bomb shelters had already been prepared “even before the war began.” But let me dwell a bit more on my first KOMSOMOL assignment. Initially, a group of five people, including me, was assigned a house on the 9


corner of Ekateringof Avenue and the Kriukov Canal, between the Mariinskii Theater on one side and the garden of the Nikolskii Cathedral on the other. It was a huge house, which was painted a gloomy dark gray, almost black, color and had many entrances. We walked through all of the house’s rooms and apartments, in turn, recording the number of rooms available. And we were greeted quite differently as we did our canvassing. Some, who feared a reduction in the size of their quarters, grumbled, and tried to pass their condition off as more difficult than it really was. However, I do not remember a single instance when anyone tried to halt our inspection – our mandates worked well. A majority of the residents showed us their apartments willingly and informed us how many people they could accept if the need arose. We submitted the data we collected to the October [Oktiabr’skii] District KOMSOMOL Committee, which was located in a building at the corner of Sadovaia Street and Voznesensky Avenue. Almost 50 years later, in the same building, I was presented a document regarding my right to receive the “Citizen of Besieged Leningrad” badge. For almost four years prior to the war, I had regularly attended classes at the Leningrad Pioneers’ Palace, where a meteorological station had

Figure 1.3 The house on the corner of the Kriukov channel and Ekaterinhof Prospect (drawn by E. Moniushko).

10


been set up in the geophysics section. V.I. Arnold-Aliabiev, whom I mentioned above, conducted these classes. Although the second month of the war was coming to an end, the schoolchildren were still manning shifts at the station, and, as before, they also made observations and recorded readings from the meteorological station’s instruments. Sometimes, I would perform a duty shift. Although it had never taken place before, instances began occurring when observers did not appear for their shifts. In these cases, our laboratory assistant, Iraida Aleksandrovna Martynova, would take over the shift herself. I remember well that artillery shells began exploding in Leningrad first and the bombs began falling later. In about mid-August, a rumor began circulating about an artillery shell falling somewhere in the area of the Moscow Railway Station. I “detoured” there while returning from the Pioneers’ Palace and saw a hole in the wall of a large building on Basseinaia Street, around the third floor, which was approximately 20–25 square meters in size. Through it, you could see the inside of a room mutilated by the explosion. The few passers-by were exchanging comments. As if they were experts, the majority of them maintained that it was a bomb from an airplane, even though the nature of the hole spoke differently. As yet, the people did not realize how close the Germans were to the city. Although I didn’t know that either, I did know that the Germans shelled Paris from a distance of 120 kilometers during the First World War. That is why, even supposing that the Germans were still far, I wasn’t surprised by the bombardment – guns with the range of 200 kilometers could have appeared by this time. I had no idea, however, that the enemy was even considerably closer to the city. By this time, they actually needed a range of only 20 kilometers to reach the city. September arrived. It had become obvious that all talk of our entering into the tenth grade was dropped as utterly superfluous. Tolia went to work at the Andre Marti Factory, where our father worked, and learned the profession of a lathe operator in a short amount of time. I applied to the Hydrological and Meteorological Service Directorate, since, because of the classes I had taken at the Pioneer’s Palace, I was qualified as a technician hydro-meteorological observer. Some time passed while the matter of my appointment was being resolved. Despite the unnoticeable effects of the white nights during September, I recall that, at the beginning of the month, strange lights appeared in the skies on two or three nights. It is possible that these were distant flashes of Aurora Borealis. It is difficult to say who benefitted more from these lights. On the one hand, the city was visible despite the blackouts, but, on the other hand, an aircraft was also visible in the light sky. However, these nights were quiet and calm. Published works state that the first bombs fell on the city on September 6. However, I did not know about this then, and I always thought that the 11


Figure 1.4 The conflagration at the Badaev food warehouses in September 1941. The view is from an MPVO (Local Air Defense) fire post situated on the roof of no. 146 Griboiedov Canal (drawing based on a 1941 sketch by E. Moniushko).

first bombing occurred on September 8. Here is how it actually was. As always, I climbed to the roof in the middle of the day after the air raid alarm sounded. Incidentally, I should note the difference between the air raid alarms that sounded out in Leningrad and Moscow. As far as I recall, in Moscow they announced, “Citizens, air raid!” A siren sounded and then the words, “Air raid!” as if this was designed to underscore the absence of differences between military personnel and civilians. After all, it would seem strange if the anti-aircraft gunners’ or a warship’s alarm signal began with the word “citizens.” We did not use the term “citizens” in our air raid alerts at Leningrad. We had an excellent view of the southern horizon from our six-story wing, but our building’s seven-story facade blocked the northern view. The heavy anti-aircraft fire began in the south. Aircraft appeared between the white puffs of the explosions, which covered the sky. Not single airplanes as before, but this time an entire formation of them – tens of aircraft from the look of it. They flew at a low altitude – you could clearly see their engines, the shining disks of their spinning propellers, and the details on their tails. The aircraft dropped their bomb loads on the southern side of the city and then proceeded north without changing direction, as if on parade. Where the bombs fell, a wall of dust and smoke appeared, rising higher and higher. The smoke didn’t settle and didn’t dissolve after the airplanes left; on the contrary, it grew thicker and thicker. When it started to get dark, the lower part of the smoke cloud was red colored and became 12


brighter as the darkness descended in the city. Finally, tongues of flame appeared between the ark silhouettes of the buildings. The fires continued throughout the night, and there was even smoke above that area the next day, although considerably thinner. Later we learned that the Badaev Warehouses, which were filled with food reserves, were burning during the night. Judging by the width of fire and smoke, not only the warehouses were burning, but also the nearby residential and industrial city blocks, right up to the commercial port. I repeat once again, as far as I know, this was the first bombing that took place in Leningrad. After that strike, regular raids began, usually at night. The Germans repeated their massive daylight air raid only during April in the spring of 1942. However, I will describe that raid in its own time. During these raids on September 9, 10, and 11, bombs fell in the area of the city where we lived for three days in a row, and, on September 9 and 11, they fell particularly close to us. On September 9, a heavy bomb struck a residential building on the corner of Maklin Avenue and the Griboiedov Canal. The Andre Marti Factory had constructed the building, and its residents had moved in not long before the war began. The sidewall of the building’s five-story wing overlooked the canal, and the building facade with 16 windows looked down on Malkin Avenue. The bomb pierced all five floors of the building’s end farthest from the canal and buried the range of four windows in the facade under a pile of bricks. Walls covered in wallpaper of various colors with rugs, pictures, and photographs could be seen in the remaining portion of the building. The distance between our house and the bomb’s impact point was only 300 meters in a straight line. Even though the explosion shook us hard, all of our windows remained intact. Some scribblers [graffiti artists], who were seeking to present all of the Soviet government’s actions in a bad light, ridiculed the official recommendation to glue strips of paper over all of the windows. However, by doing so, these scribblers only displayed their own incompetence and ignorance. Of course, while these paper strips did not protect anyone from a nearby explosion, they still significantly reduced the radius of damage from flying glass. On September 11, after it had become completely dark, I was on the roof during the air raid and heavy anti-aircraft fire, and I saw the shadow of some object descending by parachute pass nearby. The parachute could be seen against the background of the sky brightly illuminated by searchlights for only a few seconds at a time until it disappeared behind some buildings. I decided that this was the parachute of a downed German airplane pilot and immediately dove into the attic window to sound the alarm. However, I didn’t even have time to let go of the window frame when our house shook and something crashed loudly. When we returned home after the “All clear” signal (all of us were at 13


Figure 1.5 A house located on the corner of Malkin Avenue and the Griboiedov Canal. This is how the house looked two days after being struck by a bomb during a night air raid on September 9–10, 1941 (drawing based on a 1941 sketch by E. Moniushko).

our posts), we learned that the bomb’s shock wave had thrown the kitchen window open and a large pot of water standing on the wide window-sill had fallen to the floor. However, the windows’ glass remained intact. It was indeed fortunate that I was no longer on the roof when the explosion occurred or I would have been blown off the building onto the ground. When I inspected the location of the explosion, the next morning, I realized what had occurred. At about the same time, a naval mine dropped by parachute missed the Neva River and fell fairly far from it, on the embankment of the Griboiedov Canal, in the center of a semicircular plaza at the intersection of the canal with Lermontov Avenue. All three buildings, whose facades overlooked the plaza, were completely destroyed, and the wooden Mogilev Bridge over the canal was damaged and became accessible only to pedestrians. Later still, in 1942, the district council decided to dismantle the bridge and use it as firewood. It was not rebuilt until 1954. During the first days of September, a telegram arrived from Solombala (Arkhangel’sk oblast’ [region]), addressed to me, which read, “Immediately report to work. [signed] Liagin.” A wire transfer of 30 rubles came along with the telegram. Judging by this telegram, I had been accepted for work at the naval hydro-meteorological observatory in Solombala, which was a suburb of the city of Arkhangel’sk. Therefore, I had to decide 14


Figure 1.6 An overall view of the Pioneers’ Palace building. The left dome of the main wing is marked by an arrow. An aerometrics observation post was located there during the fall of 1941. During 1941 the trams were still running along Nevsky Prospect (drawn by E. Moniushko).

whether or not I should leave the city of Leningrad. At the time, however, I did not realize that the Germans had already cut all of the roads leading out of the city. I did know, however, that for some time one needed a special permit to leave Leningrad. Therefore, I went to the Leningrad Directorate of the Hydro-Meteorological Service by riding the 23rd Tram Line to Vasilevskii Island. I managed to locate the manager I needed to see without much difficulty, possibly, because I referred to the names of several well-known meteorologists such as P.A. Molchanov, Ia. Kh. Ioselev, and V.I. Arnold-Aliabiev. I recall that I was somewhat flabbergasted by the environment in which our conversations took place. Although I do not remember the last name of the manager with whom I spoke, I will never forget his tired face, which was etched with traces of sleepless nights. Dressed in civilian garb, a gun holster bulged under his jacket’s flap. Three telephones stood among the papers and maps on his desk. Behind other desks, another two or three people talked business with visitors in the same room. Our conversation was very brief. After hearing me out and looking at the telegram, he said curtly, “I can’t help you with anything. That will be all!” I believed him immediately, possibly because of the impression left by the gun under his civilian jacket. My departure for Solombala never took place. In 1973, while I was reading a book written by Academician V.V. Shuleikin, whose lectures in the Pioneers’ Palace I had attended before the 15


war, I learned that, during the fall of 1941 and the first winter of the war in Solombala, V.V. Shuleikin conducted research on the durability of ice for the purpose of facilitating ice crossings and landing operations.1 Apparently, if it had not been for the siege, I would have had the opportunity to participate in that vital work. In addition to upsetting me, the news that it was not possible for me to leave Leningrad also upset V.I. Arnold, who was hoping to use me to send winter clothing to his daughter in Vologda. Since there was nothing I could do about this situation, I had no choice but to seek other work. And I managed to find it without much difficulty. The beginning of the air raids on the city also prompted rising fears of a possible chemical attack. Consequently, the city’s Air Defense Headquarters began actively seeking methods for determining the possibility of the spread of chemical substances throughout the city by studying the wind’s direction and velocity. David L’vovich Leihtman, a researcher at the Leningrad Institute for Experimental Meteorology, suggested experimentation to determine the relationship between the air currents in the city’s streets and the direction and velocity of the wind as measured at two or three base points within the city. However, this experimentation required simultaneous measurements of the wind at the base points and at a large number of points in different parts of the city over a significant period of time. Although the work itself was not overly complicated, it did require the employment of a large number of trained personnel. Since the Meteorological Service was unable to provide these personnel, D.L. Leihtman, who had also taught meteorology at the Pioneers’ Palace before the war, asked us to participate. The necessary instruments were also found, in this case, at the Meteorology Institute, the Pioneers’ Palace, and in V.I. Arnold’s department at the Pedagogical Institute. In practice, this work amounted to taking readings of the wind’s direction and velocity in a multitude of points throughout the city every 15 minutes. The duration of this wind measurement was supposed to be just enough to cover all of the most likely wind variations at each of the base points. As a rule, we were assigned to our duties in pairs, and served shifts alone only in the most conveniently located points. For example, they assigned me to the roof of the main building of the Pioneers’ Palace, the former Anichkov Palace, which was located at the intersection of the Fontanka River and Aleksandr Nevsky Avenue. The left wing of this building housed the premises of the geophysical section and V.I. Arnold’s office, and there was an exit to the roof inside a wooden booth in the small dome. My job was to raise an anemometer on a 2-meter pole every 15 minutes, turn it on for 60 seconds, simultaneously determine the wind’s 1 See V.V. Shuleikin, Dni prozhitye [Days of Livelihood], Moscow: “Nauka,” 1972.

16


direction from a pennant or a weather-vane, take readings, calculate the wind’s velocity in meters per second from the anemometer’s reading, and communicate the results to the center over the phone line laid to the roof. On the very first day, it turned out that, during strong winds, it was very hard to hold the pole with the anemometer with one hand and manipulate the on and off wires with the other. Therefore, the second time I reported for my shift, I came with the necessary tools and materials, specifically, nails and wire. With these materials I was able to insert the pole into a special stand and affix “Start” and “Stop” captions to both the on and off wires. Hence, the work became easier and more comfortable. This was my first improvisation! Many people, including myself at least initially, thought that being posted to a spot so high and open from all sides was far more dangerous than other postings, since, after all, the city was being shelled and bombed. However, it turned out quite differently. Only a direct hit by a shell on the dome itself was dangerous. If a shell fell short or overshot, it exploded somewhere far below, and the person on top of the roof was entirely safe. On the ground, however, it was quite different. I observed many bombings and shelling from my lofty position. I watched shells explode on Nevsky Avenue and on the Fontanka. I saw the explosions of heavy bombs in various parts of the city, both near and far, and it was nothing less than miraculous that none of our guys were actually struck by the shell fragments. On one occasion, Faia Samsonova and Garik Slavkin, my friends who had been on duty somewhere in the Petrogradskaia Side [the Petrograd Section], returned covered with bruises from brick fragments and with their clothes colored brown from the brick dust. Although a bomb had destroyed a house located on the opposite side of the street from their post, they held out until the end of their shift. After the war ended, I returned to Leningrad on vacation and learned that Slavkin had been drafted into the Army in 1943 and later died in combat. Samsonova lived in Leningrad throughout the entire siege and survived. During wartime, she worked as a member of a fire crew at the conservatoire building. I also recall that the numerous air raids and shellings severely interfered with my ability to get to my assigned post by the beginning of my shift. When the air raid alarm sounded, all movement in the streets halted, and the police and Local Air Defense (MPVO) volunteers herded the pedestrians into bomb shelters, dugouts, and under arches. On many occasions, I had to cross the Anichkov Bridge at a full run despite the whistles and yells of a policeman so that I would not be late for my shift. By late fall, when the darkness fell early and it became far colder, the necessary data had been recorded and the wind measurements were stopped. Thereafter, I did not work for some time, and, instead, I concerned myself only with keeping watch on the roof and the attic and doing 17


Figure 1.7 A view southward from the fire post situated at house no. 146. The Troitskii Cathedral is as drawn in 1941 (drawn by E. Moniushko).

some routine housework. The bombings occurred almost every night during October, and air raid alarms sounded as many as 10–11 times some days. Each time the air raid alarm occurred while I was at home, I had to go up to the house’s roof. Soon after, however, I was offered a temporary job serving as a laboratory assistant at a school for reserve officers of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet. V.I. Arnold-Aliabiev, the founder and leader of the geophysics section at the Pioneers’ Palace, conducted practical meteorological training at this school. Since the classes were held in our section and used our instruments, it was natural for one of the section’s students to be chosen as a laboratory assistant. This school functioned until the severe frosts that began in late November. By this time, malnutrition was beginning to affect me noticeably. It became harder and harder to walk to work and back; it was 5 kilometers from our house to the Palace, where the classes were conducted. Initially, after food rationing was instituted, the rations were adequate enough, but soon they began to decrease gradually without any announcements to that effect being made. The shelves of the stores simply emptied, and nowhere could receive the amount of food you were due. I detected the first signs of malnutrition when it became harder for me to climb out of the attic window to the roof during air raids. I could 18


manage this during the summer with just one hop and in the fall by pushing only slightly against the window frame with my hands. Now, in December, I had to build a special stand out of bricks or other attic rubbish to get out of the window. Soon it also became noticeably more difficult even to climb the steep back stairs from the apartment to the attic, which was two floors above. Of course, by this time, I had to dress more warmly and this also affected my movements. In general, they assigned the day-time duty shifts to those who did not have other jobs, including me. By spending my time on the roof during the day-time, I knew all the entrances and passageways from one wing to another and even to neighboring buildings better than those who were there only in the dark of night. I was on the roof of the southern six-story wing during one of the night raids, and my father was on duty on the northern, seven-storied wing. The Germans usually dropped their incendiary bombs in large packages of hundreds of units in order to cover a larger area. The bombs were small, weighing 1 kilogram each, and were cylindrical in shape with blunt noses and stabilizers in their tails. These bombs were made of a flammable metal called “electron,” which was an alloy consisting of magnesium, aluminum, and zinc. If the detonator worked properly, the bomb would burn out completely at a very high temperature that could melt metal. When these bombs fell from a great height and in large quantities, the sound they made was similar to a loud rustling and dull whistling at the same time. That day, or rather that night, a cloud of incendiaries descended on our block. The rustling, hissing, and whistling ended with frequent bangs on the metal roofs, loud pops of bursting incendiaries, and blinding bluishwhite flashes. The bombs didn’t touch our building, if you don’t count the ones that fell in the yard – the watchers below handled them. But an incendiary was flaring up with a bright flame on the side wing of the neighboring house, No. 144. A little more time, and a hole would have been burned in the roof and the beams would catch fire. Since no watchers could be seen on the roof of No. 144, my father crossed from our facade wing to the neighboring one, but didn’t know how to descend to the side one, which was one story lower. I knew that several wooden slats, which could be used as steps, were nailed to the brick wall. I ran there over the roofs and in the darkness and haste caught my foot on a support cable of an antenna mast. I fell with my open mouth onto another cable and bit it so hard that I tore the corners of my mouth and broke four teeth. A shovel that I held in my hands slipped from my grasp and fell down from the seventh floor. Somehow, I managed to get up, drag myself to the firewall, and climbed over it, feeling for the slat with my foot. Father then handed me special fire tongs. After descending to the side wing, I threw the flaming incendiary down into the dark well of the yard, turned down the burned-through metal sheets of the roof, and put out the flames in the frame that was just starting to catch fire. 19


Figure 1.8 The extinguishing of an incendiary bomb on the roof of a residential building. The bomb was usually grabbed by special tongs and thrown down to the pavement where it posed no danger. Once on the ground, the fire would be extinguished with water or sand in order to ensure the maintenance of black-out conditions. When extinguishing the fire with water, the bomb would be thrown into a barrel (as drawn by E. Moniushko).

However, I couldn’t risk using this improvised ladder to get back since I was afraid that I would not have enough strength left to do so. Therefore, I got back to my apartment through the attic, down, and then up again. When I got back, my face was bloody, dirty, and all covered with soot. It turned out that my appearance was such that my father hadn’t recognized me when he handed me the tongs on the roof. The pain in my broken teeth gave me no rest. Using his special night movement permit, my father took me to a private dentist, M.I. Zuev, who lived nearby. Even though the doctor gave me first aid, serious treatment was out of the question at that time. The consequences of this accident with my teeth are apparent even now; the untreated teeth turned out to be the cause of the gradual decrease in the number of my own teeth and their replacement with “spare parts.” As early as the next day, I had already derived a practical conclusion from what I had learned the night before. I climbed to the roof and used a 20


thin wire to tie strips of white cloth made out of an old bed sheet to all of the wires, support cables, antennas, and other similar things, which made them noticeable in the dark. Even after the war, in 1947 I was pleased to find the remains of these night signaling devices on the roof. We celebrated the twenty-fourth anniversary of the October Revolution with the usual illumination [fireworks], but there were a lot more warships on Neva River than usual. They were being repaired there, and while being repaired, they also fired on aircraft and ground targets. The situation with regard to our food rations was becoming worse and worse. As I recall, the city’s public transportation system ground to a halt in September. But even prior to this complete shutdown, the trams and trolleys often stood idle because of breaks in their power transmission cables and the rails damaged during the shelling. By that time, the artillery shelling became more frequent and more routine than the aircraft bombing strikes. It was easy to see that the enemy was close, since not only shells from heavy long-range guns but also field artillery shells of 105 mm caliber or less were exploding in the streets. You could see the traces of shrapnel on the walls of one of the buildings on Griboiedov Canal (No. 156 or 158) even after the war ended. Rather than the destruction of buildings, the intent of this shelling was to kill or otherwise terrorize the people on the streets. Since our ration cards were not yet “attached” to any specific store, at that time, the search for food required considerable running about the city. I had an easier time walking than the others, and I got to be in different parts of the city during these trips. Despite all of the hardships and despite the shelling, bombing, and starvation that had already begun, the great anniversary holiday of the October Revolution was not forgotten. There were red flags on many residential and commercial buildings, and they broadcast Comrade Stalin’s address at a celebratory meeting in Moscow and his speech during the parade on Red Square. The City Council’s Executive Committee issued an order regarding the distribution of 200 grams of wine from the city’s remaining stores to all citizens who had their ration cards. We received a large bottle of Massandra rose muscatel for our family of four. On the holiday eve, we gathered around the “burzhuika” and had a celebratory supper when my brother and I tasted wine for the first time in our lives. The muscatel was simply great. It was strange that, despite my already noticeable weakness, I did not feel inebriated. Instead, there was only a pleasant warmth and sweet taste in my mouth. As if to spite the “Fritzes,” the holiday took place throughout our country, in our city, and in our own family. Gradually, we adapted to the harsh living conditions dictated by the siege. We concentrated all of our living activities in one central room of our large apartment. Beginning in the fall, we covered all of the 21

Figure 1.9 Leningrad 1941. A security [commandant’s] patrol on the streets (drawn by E. Moniushko).

22


windows in all the rooms with paper shields made out of many layers of newspapers glued together. We tailored these shields, which prevented any light from getting out, to fit each window and we nailed or pinned them directly to window frames, which allowed us to open each of the windows if the necessity arose. We had “developed” this blackout system even prior to the Soviet–Finnish War of 1939–1940, when Air Defense exercises had been regularly conducted throughout the city. When the cold weather finally arrived, these newspaper shields significantly decreased the drain of our remaining heat out through the windows. The “burzhuika” itself stood on a stand of bricks, and its smoke pipe fed straight into the stove’s chimney (we had stoves for heating in those times). All our housekeeping materials, including our dishes and illumination devices, were situated nearby on the table. First we had a kerosene lamp, then, after the supply of kerosene dried up, we began using candle-ends that were lying around, even those from a Christmas tree, but later it came down to a small peasant torch. During the day, when it was light, we would take the paper shield off one of the windows. While we still had power, we had to reattach the paper very securely so that not a slightest ray of light could escape. But now, when a candle-end barely lit the room, holes were no longer dangerous in that respect. Of course, we could not maintain a normal temperature in the room with only our “burzhuika.” To do so, you would have to stoke it continuously; however, we ran out of firewood pretty fast. Obviously, in 1941 we could not gather the usual necessary stores of firewood for heating during the winter. That was why we kept the fire going only for cooking purposes. Even so, we burned pieces of wood we picked up on the streets, wood chips, paper, some of our books, and even our furniture. It was quite difficult for us to cut up our old, bent “Viennese” chairs for firewood. Father and I could barely manage to cut off a piece of a leg with a handsaw. The difficulties on the fuel front were made worse by the fact that the winter of 1941–1942 was unusually cold for Leningrad. The frosts were rather severe, and there wasn’t a single thaw, which was usual for this place, throughout the entire winter. As the result, the temperature in the central room fell below freezing, and the water inside the bucket and the kettle would be ice-covered by morning. It wasn’t easy to get water either. Running water disappeared at the same time that the public transportation stopped working. There was no power and you could not maintain the normal pressure in the pipes anyway because of the constant damage due to bombs and shells. The residents in areas close to Neva River simply used the river water. Although our house stood along the embankment of the Griboiedov Canal, no one would risk taking water from the canal since, even today, Leningrad’s canals are badly polluted, and, in those days, the water was 23


Figure 1.10 We spent our shifts in the attics and on the roofs in this fashion during cold fall and winter nights waiting for the “All clear” signal, which would be heard over the city’s broadcast network as the sound of a fanfare (drawing based on a 1941 sketch by E. Moniushko).

dirty and opaque. However, as the spring of 1942 approached, the water in the canals cleared noticeably in a natural way because the industrial enterprises were not working. That is why the residents of those areas far removed from the Neva River had to search long and hard for other sources of water supply. The most common alternative sources of water supply were bomb craters that contained broken water mains. These craters were filled with water that kept coming into the crater under low pressure from punctured pipes. The closest of these improvised water fountains to us was located on Turgenev Square, about 1 kilometer from our house. Although that seems quite close, we needed no less than one hour to bring back 4–5 liters of water, since we lacked the strength necessary to carry any more. Sewage also froze and became clogged due to the lack of water. All household waste was taken outside and froze into tall dirty snow drifts, or was dumped in the canals, which of course also made it impossible to use water from the canals even for technical purposes. 24


Figure 1.11 The “burzhuika” metal stove that faithfully served us throughout siege during the winter of 1941–1942. It was my first attempt at metal work (as drawn by E. Moniushko).

Although a considerable amount of information about the food situation in Leningrad has been published in recent years, the most accurate and trustworthy of this information was published in the years immediately following the war. More recently, under the pretext of so-called “glasnost’,” beginning in 1985, a torrent of dirt has been dumped on the city’s wartime defense leadership, which contains obvious misinformation and outright lies. In this regard, I would like to add some details about what I saw and know about the food situation from my own personal experiences. The daily bread ration cards were not attached to any specific store. Instead, they gave the holder the right to buy bread at any bakery in the city. The coupons on a card were dated, and you could only receive bread for the current day and one day ahead of time. Coupons from previous days then became invalid. Of course, the bread was sold only by weight and not in any other sort of unit. At first, the food ration cards (there were separate cards for meat, cereals, sugar, and fats) were also “free,” but later they were attached to specific stores according to one’s place of residence. Because of the city’s significant loss of population, and also to guard against German attempts to disrupt the food supply by distributing fake ration cards, re-registration of all cards was conducted carefully two or 25


three times a month. When eating at a factory cafeteria, a ration card granted a person the right to receive dinner without regard to which store the card was attached. When a person received the meal, the required quantity of coupons for cereals, fats, and meats was simply cut out of the card. In the late fall, at a time when authorities had not yet established even a meager supply line for food across the Lake Ladoga route, the authorities were not able to provide the authorized rations, and, as a result, many Leningraders still had their ration cards with unused coupons as a reminder of the difficult situation. The most difficult period for bread supply occurred soon after the first increase in bread rations, which occurred on December 25, 1941. During the first half of January 1942, for reasons unrelated to the lack of flour, but instead due to the short supply of fuel for baking and the interruptions in water supply, bread deliveries to stores were disrupted. There were severe shortages of bread, and long lines of people stood in the freezing cold, refusing to disperse even after enemy shells exploded nearby. The people in line simply fell to the ground and pressed themselves close to the walls of the buildings. Thus, you could say that rather than standing in lines, the people laid in lines. Those who left the line for any reasons at all lost the right to return, and no amount of begging could help the situation. Sleds pulled and pushed by two or three people delivered the bread from the bakeries to the stores. However, the interruptions in bread supply did not last for very long – for example, no more than a single week in our district. Still, even this delay proved too much for some people to endure, and, as a result, the number of starvation victims began to increase noticeably during this period. More and more frequently in the streets, you began encountering people pulling sleds with the bodies of those that had died tied to them, most only barely wrapped in old rags. It was also quite common to see dead bodies lying in the streets. In early 1942, the authorities established a clearer allocation and notification system for the distribution of all supplies of foodstuffs. The Trade Directorate of Leningrad City’s Executive Committee broadcast announcements by radio to the effect that, in the course of certain days, you could receive this and that amount of this and that product with a coupon of a ration card (the coupon number was given). Later, when the newspapers resumed publishing, these announcements also appeared in the press. Even if the quantity of each product was only minimal, it became available in all stores in accordance with the number of people authorized to receive it, and, as long as the product lasted, anyone could receive what they were due without any difficulties. Of course, this preserved the strength of many of those who were starving, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that it saved the lives of many. The city’s Party organization and the City Council did everything in their power to save the lives of Leningrad’s citizens. 26


In addition to bread, various cereals, fats (most often plant oil such as sunflower, mustard, walnut, coconut, and flax oil), powdered eggs, sugar, meat, and salt were distributed by means of the ration cards, although in smaller quantities. As far as I recall, no defined monthly norm existed for the distribution of foodstuffs; instead it was based only on the product’s availability. In addition to the food we received by means of the ration cards, a wide variety of surrogates were substituted for real food. For example, pets were eaten, and I must say that a roast cat doesn’t differ much from a rabbit, so no explanations are required here. But I would be remiss if I did not mention carpenter’s glue. Bars of carpenter’s glue were soaked in water for about a day beforehand, and then they were boiled in water until they completely dissolved on the basis of one bar per every 2–3 liters of water. However, bay leaves and pepper were often added to mask the noticeably unpleasant smell of the glue. Many housewives had carefully preserved these spices since before the war. You could eat glue both hot, as a soup, or after it cooled, as a jelly, especially if you could get some mustard to add to it. Something similar was also made out of rawhide, but I must add that it was far less edible. For a considerable period of time after rationing was introduced, you could also buy surrogate coffee in the stores, sometimes even natural unfried coffee beans, and also various spices including mustard powder. We even made some attempts to bake flat cakes out of mustard or coffee grounds – we mixed it up and fried the resulting “pancakes” right on top of the hot “burzhuika” or in a dry pan. Even though it was terribly bitter, it did offer some sense of satisfaction. After the severe frosts arrived and the half-starved life began, but before the deep snows fell, there was yet another source where you could get something to eat. City dwellers made their way to the suburban village of Sredniaia Rogatka and other nearby suburbs and, once there, searched for the remains of frozen potatoes or cabbage-stalks in the already harvested vegetable gardens. This was a risky business, however, because the front lines were very close by. On the one hand, you risked being struck by a stray German bullet, and on the other, you risked being arrested for violating the regulations. But, if you were lucky, you could make decent “schi” [a traditional Russian cabbage soup] from what you uncovered. I do think that the prohibition against such “excursions” was justified. It kept people away from danger, and, at the same time, it was necessary for the maintenance of security in the rear area. On some notable occasions, we found something unexpectedly pleasant and useful. On the eve of the New Year, for example, we decided to raise our spirits by somehow decorating our room, and we dug out the box with our Christmas tree decorations. We found that some of these decorations were made from some sweetly edible substances and immediately used 27


them for this purpose. We always had small stocks of supplies for light repairs in our house, and among them we found natural flax paint. It turned out that this too could serve for cooking. Of course, as I have already mentioned, pets were often used as food. Our family had neither a dog nor a cat before the war. However, during the late fall or early winter we were twice able to obtain cats. Father, who had lived in Siberia during his youth and had some experience hunting, took upon himself the difficult task of turning that game into meat that could be cooked. It was also difficult both because we had little physical strength left and because we had no tools save for a small crowbar/nail puller. To tell you the whole truth, I must also mention that we used not only meat but even scraped the fat off the skin – not a bit was wasted. We also experienced other problems in addition to the hunger and cold, among the worst of which was lice infestation. Before the war we knew about this only from books we read about the Civil War or the First World War. In the beginning, we could not even understand why we had the constant urge to scratch ourselves. Cold, emaciation, and constant nervous tension were not conducive to us taking off our outer clothes and underwear, and what would we have been able to see under the dim light of a torch? Where did lice come from? Apparently, we brought them in from the public transportation, from the lines, and from the bomb shelters. Probably one of Tvardovsky’s heroes was right when he acknowledged that, to be a real soldier, a man had to experience “simply one thing – a louse.” We managed to fend this plague off only during the spring, after warmth and light had arrived once again. Gradually, we all became weaker – our strength was leaving us. Mother held out longer than anyone else. Father used his last strength to leave for the factory, and we never knew if he would come back. Brother took to bed in the end of December and could not even move around the room. Probably our family would not have avoided casualties if it weren’t for mother’s sister, Aunt Galia. She was a doctor and worked at a hospital. Although she did not get enough to eat herself, she shared some bits of her military ration with us, bringing several rusks or two or three pieces of sugar to us once every one or two weeks. The heavy human losses prompted the factories and other companies to organize special centers to provide help to the most emaciated people. These centers were called “statsionars” [guard ships]. Of course, it was almost impossible to find additional rations for people that were put there. But on the other hand, the accommodations where they were deployed were warm, you could wash and rest there, but most importantly – even though the diet was meager – it was regular. Many people died simply because they were not able to allocate all of 28


Figure 1.12 A street in besieged Leningrad. This is how the stores’ windows were covered with protective boards and earth, how water was carried from the bomb craters that punctured the water mains, and how the fallen were carried away to their final resting places (drawing from a 1942 sketch, this also shows a building on the corner of Malkin Prospect and Sadovaia Street (as drawn by E. Moniushko)).

their food correctly. For example, they ate everything during the first days of the ration period, and thereafter were left completely without food. Their weakened bodies could not endure the strain. Without a doubt, the “statsionars” saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Father was also put in the factory “statsionar” toward the end of winter. He spent two weeks there. This helped him a lot; he came back significantly stronger, and it was obvious that the main danger was past. I was also 29


put out of commission for a while in February – and took to bed. The weakness was such that it was hard to turn from one side to the other while lying in bed, and because of that, painful bedsores appeared. In general, the thinness and emaciation of the Leningraders was such that, even several months after the winter of starvation and after rations had been increased significantly, many people who had desk jobs carried specially sewn pillows with them, without which they could not sit down. Their bare bones could scarcely endure a hard chair. As far as I remember, there were very few air raids against the city during the winter months – instead they were replaced by artillery shelling. Possibly, winter difficulties with landing strips were responsible, or fuel shortages, heavy fighting on other fronts, near Moscow in particular, but, whatever the reason, the air raid alerts became rare. Spring was approaching, and now the threat of an epidemic hung over the city. Despite all of our efforts, there were undoubtedly corpses under the snow in the streets. In addition, all of the snow drifts had waste poured on them, which could also become a source of infection after they melted. This could not be permitted to happen; otherwise the city could die. The city’s defense leaders, A.A. Zhdanov, P.S. Popkov, and N.G. Kuznetsov, called upon all Leningraders to come out and clean up the city. Weak, emaciated people emerged, crawled out of their homes into the streets, and performed a miracle – the city cleansed itself and freshened up, and it became apparent that the people’s will had not broken. All of the fuel reserves were used up, power was returned to the tram network, and the city’s cargo trams drove out into the streets. People manually shoveled snow mixed with dirt and garbage into the cargo trams, which were then driven away and dumped into the Neva River and into the city’s canals, from where the spring floods would carry it away to the sea. During these times, an unusual quiet settled over the city. A few factories, but not all of them, barely functioned, and there were no cars in the streets. Sound carried an amazing distance in that eerie silence. For example, when the cargo trams drove along Ogorodnikov Avenue, we at the Griboiedov Canal could clearly hear their bells and the screeching of their wheels against the rails as they turned. And the distance was no less than 3 kilometers away. The city’s clean-up was not limited to this massive effort. Actually, the city’s streets were kept cleaner than before the war, and, despite the destruction and the boarded up windows, the city looked majestic and solemn. The air raids resumed again in the spring. I remember well a big raid in April. The Germans intended to exploit the fact that the naval ships on the Neva had not yet freed themselves from the grip of the ice and lacked the ability to maneuver; and therefore, they tried to destroy our navy. The raid occurred during the day-time. My brother, who had not yet recovered from his extreme emaciation, and I were at home. We could only see the 30


sky, which was completely covered with the white foam of numerous explosions. However, the din of the large number of anti-aircraft machine guns, which had been mounted on the ships and some of the buildings, was deafening. These machine guns decided the fate of the raid. Seeking to hit the ships, the Germans attacked from low altitude and dived toward the ships but, struck with dense fire at point-blank range, were not able to come out of their dives, and crashed into the ice, the water, and the ground. The navy did not suffer any serious losses, and the city’s shipbuilding factories quickly repaired all of the damage. But the losses to German aviation on that day amounted to tens of aircraft. Spring quickly took control. The city was reviving. During the winter there had been centers created in many of the city’s stores where you could get a glass of hot boiled water and warm yourself. Somehow they even tried to make those places cozy despite the semi-darkness caused by the windows being covered with special contraptions made of boards and filled with sand. Just as the boiled water helped the people, these protective contraptions reliably protected persons from bomb fragments and saved many citizens from the frosts. The starvation endured during the winter also caused scurvy to rear its ugly head in the city. And so, posters appeared in the same centers that supplied boiled water in the winter, which instructed the people on how to make a vitamin tincture from pine needles, and also how to cook various dishes containing spring grass, nettles, goosefoot, and other weeds. Soon these centers made this healing potion available for free, like the boiled water. During late April, some movie theaters opened their doors. In May, for example, we watched the movie “The Big Waltz” somewhere on Nevsky Prospect; it seems that this was in the “Titan” theater, although I am not absolutely sure. I do remember that it was very difficult to watch the scenes where even a modest meal was shown. It must also be said about the city’s cultural life, that, even if it stopped during the most difficult winter months, still everything possible was done to sustain it. As early as November I managed to see performances at the Kirov (now Mariinskii) Opera and the Ballet Theater with a free pass I had received from an acquaintance. Although I do not remember exactly what was on the stage, I felt both bitter and proud. Workers who came straight from work sat in the unheated theater in their coats and “valenki” [felt boots]. Next to them sat people in military uniform, dressed in boots and short fur coats, some of whom were armed. And the best of the city’s and country’s actors performed for them on the cold stage, starving and freezing, but beautiful in their mastery and steadfastness. Even though the theater building was severely damaged in one of the air raids, reconstruction work had already begun in 1942. While complete restoration was out of the question, the theater could accept audiences as early as the summer. 31


However, along with the revival of the city’s life, the shelling increased in frequency, and the sudden raids on one district or another became more commonplace. And if they announced an air raid warning in the entire city, the signal-warnings about the beginning of a shelling were given only in the areas where the Germans were firing at that time. Despite their overall efficiency, these alarms were usually sounded too late. Signs then appeared on the walls of buildings, which indicated the less dangerous sides of the streets. These were vitally important primarily for first-time visitors to those areas, since the local residents already knew from experience on which side a shell could be expected. The severity of the German shelling could be inferred from the fact that, during the siege, and later, while arriving in Leningrad for a vacation, I tried to find even one building that didn’t have any damage from the bombs and the shells, but in vain – I did not succeed. When the spring sun started warming up for real, my brother, who as yet was not going to work in the factory because of his extreme emaciation, and I made several attempts to “crawl” out into the streets. There were very difficult moments during these “expeditions.” For example, when returning home, we had to walk up the stairs to the fifth floor since our building did not have an elevator. This climb took about an hour to make and required us to take a long rest on each landing of the stairs. Outside the house, every hole, depression, pile of rocks, and streetlight knocked over by a shell represented an insurmountable obstacle. These obstacles had to be bypassed, since we didn’t have enough strength to step, or especially, jump over them. The spring warmth and the noticeably better, although still insufficient, supplies created a strange sensation within us that, even if the hunger and cold were behind us, there was no longer any danger. This sensation, of course, was simply illusory. I recall that, during one such foray, we found ourselves in the park at Turgenev Square at the very moment when the shelling began. Like everyone else around us, we realized this from the whiz of shells, the roar of explosions, and the almost immediate alarms that sounded from the street loudspeakers of the Local Air Defense headquarters. Can you imagine our situation? We couldn’t run. The entire park was pockmarked with holes, dugouts, and bomb shelters from the previous fall, but we could not use these either since they were full of water from the recently melted snow. Moreover, it was impossible for us to get down the wet dirt footsteps, much less climb out of there. And so we and the others who were in a similar state began walking, slowly, patiently, and with an outward calm, while seeking passages between the holes, bypassing obstacles, and moving steadily toward the nearest buildings on Sadovaia Street and Maklin Avenue, where we could take cover inside or under the arches. Nevertheless, such walks were necessary; they made you gather up all of your strength and overcome your weakness. 32


Figure 1.13 The Admiralty plant (the Marti Factory). One can see lifting cranes, two nautical columns of the 8th Factory Shop, a floating crane, and a ship in the factory cove (as drawn by E. Moniushko).

Thanks to the spring’s warmth and light, the city gradually revived and its people, including us, became reanimated. Soon my brother was already going to work at the mechanical section of a shipbuilding factory, where he made shell casings on a lathe. I also found work at the same factory. It seemed inconceivable to sit without work at a time like that. The Meteorological Service did not need any more specialists, since all of the positions in Leningrad were taken, and going out to work in another city was impossible because of the siege. I do not recall any details regarding how I got the job at the factory, probably because my father took care of all the paperwork. He worked in the same place, at the Admiralteiskii Factory, which back then was called the Andre Marti factory. I obtained a job as a trainee electrician in the factory’s 8th Workshop Section, the hull workshop, which assembled ship hulls. My immediate supervisor was the workshop’s electrician, Sofronov, who also doubled as the secretary of the workshop Communist Party organization. At the beginning of the shift and after the lunch break, I was responsible for starting the generator that transformed the 880-volt alternating current into low voltage direct current for the use of welding devices in timely fashion. During the shift itself, I had to watch the temperature of the various machines, oil the machine’s bearings, and, at the end of the shift and during the lunch break, turn all of the machines off. Of course, the factory wasn’t building any new ships during the siege. On the contrary, we disassembled the unfinished ship hulls at the stocks so that we could use the sheet steel to fill new emergency orders. During this period, the melting ice on Lake Ladoga once again threatened the city’s 33


remaining populace with renewed starvation, since the truck road across the frozen lake would soon not be able to function. Therefore, the shipbuilders of Leningrad were hastily preparing means of water transport. Our workshop welded pontoons (the word “tender” appeared later and became established in popular literature, but back then they were called pontoons). These pontoons were of simple design, even though they could transport dozens of tons of cargo. They were loaded and unloaded practically without requiring any berths at all, and they did not sink even after being capsized by heavy waves on Lake Ladoga caused by storms or nearby explosions. Later, I got to see these little ships transporting cargo during my crossing of Lake Ladoga. However, these pontoons were not used for transporting people since they lacked either any superstructures or bulwarks. The crew consisted of one or two men, who worked out on the open decks with a guard railing but without any other protection from the waves, wind, and rain. As small as my contribution was to the work of creating these ships for the summer “Road of Life,” still I did all I could and everything I was entrusted with. The fact that my boss was the “partorg” [Party organizer] dictated the other type of work I performed at the factory. Apparently, long before I even arrived at the factory, my boss learned about my talent for drawing from my father, who had working contacts with the 8th Workshop. A small drawing of mine, which portrayed one of the ships built by Leningrad’s factories, including our factory, played a role in this recognition. It is likely that his ship, which was the “first-born” of the new class of “Kirov” class light cruisers, is well known to many. Father took this drawing to the factory, where the professional shipbuilders approved it. Sofronov offered me a serious assignment almost as soon as I arrived at the workshop. I recall that he talked about how worn out and emaciated the workers were from the difficult winter and how some couldn’t even find the strength necessary to open and read the newspapers that were now being published from time to time in the besieged city. And it would also be nice, he said, if, at the entrance of the workshop, the workers could be greeted by large-scale cartoons of Hitler and his cronies and brief messages about the most important news, drawn on large sheets of paper. Exploiting the fact that my work did not require constant attention, during the breaks between making rounds to check the machines and their temperature (by touching the heated spots with my palm), I selected the most striking cartoons from the newspapers and transferred them to the reverse side of old technical drawings, of which there were plenty, with ink and colored pencils. Each morning, Sofronov would call me to the workshop entrance and, while secretly pointing out the slight smiles on the faces of the workers coming to their shift, would say happily, “Look, look, it’s working!” Sofronov, however, was extremely pained by the fact that, although solidly built, the old, pre-war showcase had been severely 34


damaged during one of the bombings of the factory. Sadly, we had neither the strength nor the skill necessary to fix the split corner of the showcase’s frame, which was made of thick boards. I do remember some details regarding the factory life, the work involved, and the people’s mood during that period. For example, an old chap, whose name I unfortunately don’t remember, worked in the 8th Workshop as a “marker.” They said that he had worked at the factory for 25 years, that is, since 1917. Before the war, he had been decorated with the Order of the Red Banner of Labor for his excellent work. He always had the Order pinned to his overalls. However, after he suffered through the starvation period during the winter, he could no longer work by himself, since the work as a “marker” of the hull’s steel sheets required the person to be bent to the ground constantly and to squat for lengthy periods of time. Nor was the equipment light either. Therefore, he could only give suggestions and instructions, consult, and assist in the marking of the sheet so that there would be less waste products and shorter lines. The “beginners,” young guys from the trade schools, as well as women who had just begun work at the factory, listened to him intently. You had to see how respectfully they gazed at the Order that decorated the tarpaulin coveralls of this aged, massive man, whose face was shrunken from starvation. The Admiralteiskii Factory was located on the western side of the city, which was often shelled. They said that you could even see the flashes of the German gunfire from the upper levels of the 8th Workshop. However, our workshop had an advantage over other workshops in terms of its protection. The concrete structures of the stocks, where the ships’ hulls, which weighed dozens of thousands of tons, were assembled, were so strong that they could survive even the explosions of heavy bombs. We exploited this fact to the fullest extent. For example, the workshop’s cafeteria was located in the space under the stocks. But I will talk about the cafeterias a little later. Besides this rather reliable shelter, the 8th Workshop possessed another peculiar characteristic. There was a canal next to it, where ships that needed repairs or were under construction could enter the workshop’s grounds. I should also note that this was where the famous cruiser “Aurora,” which was built here in 1904 and was repaired in the canal in October of 1917, entered the Neva River and approached the Nikolaev Bridge to take its historic shot at the Winter Palace. The masts of the ships moored in the canal and the tall structures of the cranes, which were parked on the rails [railroad] along the canal, and the stocks, could be seen from the German observation posts and became an enticing target for the shelling. There was a small square at the canal’s very end, exactly where the main entrance to the factory’s workshop was situated. A torrent of people would walk through the square in the morning and in the evening. There was also a small monument to V.I. 35


Lenin in the center of the square. It seemed strange that the monument remained whole and survived intact, even though everything around it – the asphalt, the granite plates, and the building’s walls – were scarred by shell fragments. I was astonished by that fact until I found out that almost every night the most skilled factory engravers would “treat” the wounded statue. And every morning Lenin would greet the Party members. My brother worked at one of the mechanical workshops at the factory, Workshop Number 20, I believe. These workshops, which used to manufacture parts of the ships’ mechanisms and machinery, were equipped with all sorts of engineering tools and were not supposed to be idle when ship construction ceased. The workshops were also capable of producing mortars and the ammunition for them. I visited my brother in his workshop several times. When he had to raise a blank 120 mm shell to his lathe, we would do it together. Neither he nor I had enough strength to do it alone, even though the weight of the blank shell did not exceed 20 kilograms. Obviously, my help was only a random episode, since I could visit only during my lunch break but only if no other circumstances prevented me from doing so. Usually the “turners” from the neighboring lathes would also help each other. I do recall some minor details about the conditions while we were at work. For example, we were supposed to carry gas masks with us at all times. Often the security personnel at the workshop entrance would “raise objections” to those who arrived at work without their gas masks. That occurred because some of the craftsmen managed to open up the gas mask boxes, clean out everything that was inside them, solder up the bottoms, and use the resulting containers to carry soup from the factory’s cafeteria so as to be able to have something to eat at home and share it with the family. Such “gas masks” were quite common in 1942. Although the security personnel knew about these special containers, they did not have any formal excuse to quibble about this, since we observed all outward appearances. Factory cafeterias were open in all of the workshops, even in locations where none had existed prior to the war. This permitted the workers to avoid expending their precious time and strength in moving about the huge premises of the factory, which was not always safe either. As I have already mentioned, the cafeteria in the 8th Workshop was located under the stocks, whose safety provided us special comfort. Of course, the food in the cafeterias was also distributed by means of the ration cards; that is, they would cut out coupons for the corresponding amount of cereal, fats, and other products during the distribution, in order to prevent abuse. Also, it seems to me, in order to prevent unwarranted suspicions, the ingredients were placed into the pot in the presence of a group of worker inspectors. After cooking the mixture, the resulting “kasha” or soup was weighed, and, by means of simple calculations, they determined the weight 36


Figure 1.14 The type of boat produced by the 8th Factory Shop used to cross Lake Ladoga during 1942 (as drawn from memory by E. Moniushko).

of each portion corresponding to the specific number of grams of cereal and other products available. Everyone’s individual portion was weighed out carefully in accordance with these calculations, which were posted openly for common review. I must note that, by the spring of 1942, the rations far exceeded the meager rations of the past winter, and if we had not been so extremely emaciated, they would have been more than sufficient to sustain both life and limb, and work. However, the rations were not sufficient for us to restore our normal body mass and physical strength and to overcome the constant feeling of hunger, which did not go away even after a rather filling dinner. Finally, the rations were not adequate enough for us to fight off our natural thoughts about the possibility of a renewed starvation. Getting ahead of myself, I must say that it took quite some time to rid ourselves of the intense feeling of hunger. Another problem appeared in the spring – the problem of scurvy. As far as I recall, the medics explained that scurvy flared up when more food became available but the quantity of vitamins necessary for its digestion did not increase by as much as was necessary. After all, the additional rations consisted primarily of bread, sugar, fats, and cereal, but not vegetables and fruit, which were unsuitable for transportation because of their disadvantageous size-to-weight ratio. The clear signs of scurvy, including swollen joints, blown up gums, shaky teeth, and other symptoms, were already noticeable by early in the spring. Energetic measures were taken. Work crews were sent to the north of Leningrad and to the suburbs that were still not occupied by the enemy, such as Toksovo, Pargolovo, and Vsevolzhskaia, to collect conifer [pine] needles. Although it had a rather disgusting taste, the vitamin tincture made from these needles was essential 37


for life. This tincture appeared in medical offices, drug stores and, as I already mentioned, in grocery stores – for free. Instructions about edible plants and ways to cook them were also printed in large quantities, some even in color. Today it is very hard to imagine how difficult it was to do all of this in the conditions of a besieged city, which had not only lost its industry, but also many of its skilled workers. Most of these workers were now serving in the army, some had been evacuated, and there were many that had not survived the winter of starvation. The city’s and districts’ Communist Party Committees, which were in charge of the city’s daily life, had to search for surviving specialists and scientists using archival data and then assign them to work in the most important areas. But I have digressed a bit from the factory’s business to other city-wide concerns. Let me now return to the workshop, where two incidents occurred that I remember quite well. First, a lad who worked as an electrician asked for my assistance in helping him fix a small problem in a bridge crane’s engine. He started climbing to the crane over a narrow ladder fixed to the workshop’s wall, and I followed him. Of course, that climb was not easy for those that had survived the first winter of the siege. That is why we had to look for support not only for our shaking feet but also for our feeble hands. The workshop’s glass ceiling let practically no light in. Camouflage paint had been added to the usual soot and dust, and where the glass was broken, the window frames had been blocked up with plywood and rubber. In the semi-darkness, I noticed a thick metal rod, which had been affixed to the wall horizontally. Perhaps 15–20 millimeters in diameter, the rod was black with old soot. Since it seemed to me that the rod would provide a good support, I grabbed it with my left hand. I was saved only by the fact that my right hand wasn’t touching anything, and my feet, even though they were standing on the metal ladder, were clad in boots and were not bare. The “hand-rail” I had selected turned out to be a bus [rail] that conducted electricity along which the bridge crane’s current collector rolled. It started shaking me violently. I was being contorted, but I could not even open my mouth to utter a cry for help. However, I could not let go of the rod because the current had paralyzed my muscles. Meanwhile, my partner kept on climbing without noticing my situation. After reaching a landing, he looked back at me. His face became white and his eyes round, and he didn’t know what to do. After all, he was a boy just like me, even younger, having just completed a trade school. He couldn’t turn off the current because the switch was below him, and he couldn’t get down without touching me. Yelling was useless since the constant banging of metal and the sizzling of the welding from down below muffled the sounds of our voices. I don’t know how long this silent scene went on, but finally a 38


spasm contorted me so violently that my feet left the ladder. At the same instant my hand unclasped, and I rolled down the ladder to the nearest landing. Obviously, we didn’t tell anyone about that incident. I counted the bruises at home. Fortunately, the burns to the palm of my hand were not severe. And, except for my young partner, there were no witnesses at all. I cannot explain how I managed to get out alive and survive that situation. Maybe, the emaciation of my body simply increased its electrical resistance. Perhaps a person with normal body mass would have been killed on the spot. We did climb up to the crane after all. As far as I recall, we had to replace a part in the engine. After that incident, I started paying more attention to various personal safety posters, which had seemed funny to me in the beginning; for example, posters reading “Bend in the nail!” or “Pick up the rivet!” Scaffolding, similar to those that had been erected around each building under construction, was placed around the hulls of the ship being built (or rather, being built before the war but mothballed at the time). And if a rivet fell from this scaffolding, that is, from a height of dozens of meters, it could seriously injure you. That was why there were signs on all levels of the scaffolding reminding workers of that nasty fact, and boxes next to them, where they could deposit pieces of metal they had picked up. In like fashion, other signs reminded us about the danger of protruding nails, and anyone who noticed such a nail did not pass it by, but instead always took care of it. This habit was noticeable in all of the experienced workers. The second memorable incident, or rather event, occurred after I joined the KOMSOMOL organization. And it happened quite naturally. The workshop’s “Partorg” [Party organizer] was my immediate supervisor and mentor at the factory. The KOMSOMOL secretary also worked for him. I did not have to be cajoled or persuaded to accept the convictions of Communism since they had been inculcated in me from my pre-school years. My mother’s brothers, Uncle Alexander and Uncle Grigoriy, were both Communists and had both participated in the Civil War. Even though he formally wasn’t a Party member, father was a convinced Communist and had participated in the revolutionary movement as early as 1905. The only reason I had not joined the KOMSOMOL earlier was that I did not consider myself worthy of that honor. Nonetheless, they persuaded me that every one of us was doing everything they could, and that my pictures and agitation posters were no less significant work than what the others were doing. The short meeting prior to my joining the KOMSOMOL reminded me of a meeting described by Fadeev in his book, The Young Guard. It turned out that my answers about the main tasks of the KOMSOMOL, to defend Leningrad, were determined to be politically correct. Soon after, I received my KOMSOMOL identification card, which I 39


have even now, at the October [Oktiabr’skii] District VLKSM committee, which is located at the corner of Sadovaia Street and Maiorov (Voznesenskii) Avenue. There is a “Valid without photo” stamp on the card’s first page, a reminder of the siege, when even photographic materials were scarce. I have already mentioned that the city’s defense leadership sought to anticipate the course of events and, whenever possible, take necessary measures beforehand. Despite the constant attempts to break the siege, there was no guarantee that this would occur before the coming of the second winter of the war. In any case, it was clear that we could not permit the tragedy of the first winter to repeat itself. Therefore, the city began preparing for the winter of 1942–1943 as early as the summer before. Stockpiles of fuel were prepared. Besides cutting firewood in the forests north of the city, reserves were sought in the city itself. The reason for that was quite compelling. It was simply next to impossible to find the necessary number of workers in the city, where almost everyone was suffering from dystrophy (emaciation). The few woodcutter crews, which lacked necessary experience, could not help the situation. The wood cut by them was damp and couldn’t serve for stoking apartment stoves. The transportation of this firewood from the woods into the city also required a lot of scarce gasoline. Although a portion of the city’s truck park had changed over to gas generator fuel and the trucks were filled with wood chocks instead of gas, there simply were not enough of these trucks. The search for a wood supply within the city itself resulted in the bright idea of using building and other structures damaged by the bombings. The fate of the wooden Mogilev Bridge, which had been damaged by a bomb, was resolved in this fashion. In short, the city’s residents were granted permission to disassemble the wooden structure and use it for fuel. The wooden seats from the Lenin Stadium also served as firewood. The right to exploit this wood was granted by virtue of regular admission tickets to the stadium, which had specific seats marked on them. The ticket holders then disassembled the seats as specified by their tickets with their own hands and used the resulting fuel. And all of this was done before the cold arrived. Another important step in the general preparations for the second winter was the decision to simply evacuate those who were the weakest and most seriously emaciated from the city. Children, old folks, the weak, and the disabled were evacuated out of the city via the water route across Lake Ladoga. Beforehand, special medical commissions examined the people and then issued them warrants for their evacuation. For example, I underwent a thorough examination at the commission [VTEK] in July. The commission’s conclusion was that I had been a third-degree invalid for a period of six months. They reached analogous conclusions about all of the members of our family, and we were evacuated in August 1942. 40


Although I do not recall exactly how much of our possessions we were permitted to carry out of Leningrad with us, I do know that our physical capabilities rather than official constraints were the primary limitations on what we could take. Besides the clothing on our backs, we took with us only winter coats and hats, light blankets, and the heaviest object, my mother’s manual sewing machine, which she thought she could use as a source of income. Time has erased many of details about the evacuation from my memory. We were taken from the Finland [Finliandskii] Railroad Station to Lake Ladoga in commuter trains along the right (northern) bank of the Neva River. The branch railroad line extended to the lighthouse on Cape Osinovets. There, in the temporary port, various vessels were loaded, including cutters, tenders, barges, and steamships. The piers, which stretched far into the lake from the shore, had been built out of logs to facilitate the loading. The ships that came from the other side of Lake Ladoga with cargoes destined for Leningrad were unloaded at those piers. We boarded a small river motor ship, one of those that had given rides to city residents on weekends before the war. However, the glass of many of the cabin windows in the ship had been replaced with plywood. Here, at the port of Osinovets, I finally saw the products made by our workshop, the pontoons with automobile engines. The weather was quiet during the crossing of Lake Ladoga, which was indeed rare in these parts. Otherwise, our recreational boat would not have been allowed to take part in the run [convoy]. However, despite the light wind, small but steep waves were rolling across the surface of the lake. Our pontoons, which were poorly suited for the waves, rolled and danced at their berths, especially those that had already been unloaded. It was nice to see these small, but important, vessels, which reflected a part of my labor. And so, Leningrad was behind us. Was there a feeling that I was leaving the city forever, and that I would not get to live in Leningrad again, the city with which 17 years of my previous life were inexorably tied? It is indeed hard to be certain about this feeling now. Perhaps there was a pretty clear realization on my part that it might happen. Too much had happened in that past year that accustomed me to think of the possibility of unexpected twists of fate. To everyone else and to me in common, too much spoke of the reality that very little depends on you and your plans and intentions. It was not only buildings that collapsed under the Germans’ bombs. Childish, naive notions of life collapsed as well. A realization of the fragility and unreliability of human life swept over us, even though we were assured by a sense of the society’s strength and the strength of a collective of comrades who were united by a single idea. The first year of the war took away many people, some well known and some close to me, some older than I, some the same age, and others 41


younger, and many others were missing. For some time, for example, we had not received any letters from my mother’s younger brother, Uncle Vitia, who had been conscripted into a combat engineer unit. Much later, we learned that he had been killed in the fighting at Demiansk. V.I. Arnold-Aliabiev, a man to whom many of Leningrad’s children owed their introduction to the world of culture and science, who was a good man, a serious scientist, and an explorer of the Arctic, died of starvation in 1942. The life of A.Ia. Molibog, who was a prominent specialist in agricultural meteorology and had also taught in the Leningrad Pioneer Palace, also came to a tragic end. Not subject to conscription into the army due to his age, he took the materials of the Agricultural Meteorology Institute into his care, including a collection of grain seeds that he had grown in various climatic conditions. While he was able to keep this collection, which contained dozens of kilograms of grain, safe, he himself became so weak from hunger that he died in front of his extinguished “burzhuika” stove from carbon monoxide poisoning. My friend, Victor Lung, a talented young man who was very interested in hydrology and was a year older than me, also perished during the siege. He enlisted at a naval academy but died during a bombing raid on Lake Ladoga in the fall of 1941, while his academy was being evacuated. My friend, Ibragim Armasov, a 14-year-old lad who was one of the youngest boys in the geophysical section, was killed by a shell fragment in the street. Raia Raber, who was the same age as me and was a talented maths student who, while still in the eighth grade, had brilliantly won the citywide Mathematics Olympics for the secondary school graduates, did not survive the winter’s starvation. Our classmate, Vitia Rassadkin, who was older than everyone in the class and looked even older than his years, joined the “Narodnoe Opolchenie” [Peoples’ Militia] and was subsequently killed in combat on the outskirts of Leningrad. I last met with him on Sadovaia Street, in the exact location where an obelisk in memory of the formation of the October District “Narodnoe Opolchenie” Rifle Division in September 1941 is now located. How many more could I name? And how many others were there whose death I witnessed but I could not name since I did not know them? It was about these people that Olga Bergholz later wrote, “We couldn’t list all of their noble names . . .” There, beyond Lake Ladoga, we said our good-byes to Leningrad. But, for how long would it be? The lake crossing took a little more than an hour since we traveled along the so-called “short” route to the port of Kobona. And only there, while we were loading into the echelons [railroad cars], did we feel the sharp contrast between the iron discipline and order in the besieged city of Leningrad and the disorder in the rear, if Kobona could be described as the rear, since it was not that far from the frontline. The utter confusion associated with the loading process began at 42


Figure 1.15 Pleasure motor boats often served as auxiliary ships in the Ladoga Flotilla (as drawn from memory by E. Moniushko).

Kobona. Although everyone had his or her destination specified in his or her evacuation papers, nevertheless it was impossible to determine where a specific train being loaded would ultimately go. People rushed about the tracks and between the wheels; they couldn’t find their trains, and many – it was noticeable – didn’t even try. They simply boarded those trains which, judging by their signs, would depart first, or those that, supposedly, would go to the places where they wanted to go themselves, regardless of their papers. Because of this confusion, we found ourselves in a car going to the city of Perm, even though, as far as I recall, the Sverdlovsk region was specified as our destination in our papers. The cars were freight, of course, two axle vans of the “40 men or 8 horses” type. I do not recall many details of our trip. I do remember, however, that, in some stations, our evacuation papers allowed us to receive some food, including bread, preserves, and concentrates, which we were not able to cook anywhere. Therefore, we had to steep them in boiling water, which, in accordance with a well-known saying, was free at almost every station. Of course, there were no train schedules, and you could not determine when each train would move again, even at the larger stations. Military trains, those with troops and weapons moving to the west and with the wounded to the east, certainly received the highest priority. Of course, the uncertainty associated with a lengthy halt inconvenienced not only those people who were in the railroad cars, but also the railroad workers. Fearing being left behind by the train, people did not venture far from the cars even for a call of nature, and the tracks in the stations were in such a state that it would be far too lenient to term them as only unsanitary. Somewhere, I think in Perm, we were transferred to other railroad cars, but I do not know the reason why. The process of dragging our things across the tracks, loading them into the high cars, and simply standing on the embankment was so difficult that we decided to ride the trains “to the victorious end,” essentially, to wherever the trains would take us. There, at the transfer station, my brother and I almost became lost. Believing the engineer’s assurances that we would halt for no less than one hour, we 43


ventured about 100–150 meters ahead along the tracks to look at the Kama River and the city along its banks. Suddenly we saw that the “arm” of the semaphore signal was being raised. While I cannot truthfully say that we ran back, gasping, we walked toward the locomotive, which had already started moving slowly, at an uncertain gait. Apparently, the engineer understood our situation and came to our assistance by not increasing the train’s speed. We decided not to wait for our car, and, instead, climbed right into the locomotive by using a ladder near the front travelers. And so we rode the locomotive throughout that entire stage of the trip, without being able to pass a message to our freight car that we were not lost. Of course, our parents were worried, understanding that, if we were lost in this nationwide turmoil, it would not be easy to find each other before war’s end. As we had decided earlier, we rode this train to the very end. After we crossed the Urals, we entered the steppes of northern Kazakhstan. All the while, the situation with our food rations steadily worsened. We had to buy food at our own expense, and on top of that, the food was sold reluctantly for money. Instead, the sellers asked for our things in exchange, but we didn’t have any extra stuff. In one of the small stations, an old Kazakh was selling wheat by the glass. People surrounded him, extending their money to him and pulling on him from all sides. The old man, who barely understood Russian, was lost and did not know to whom to listen. Fortunately, father, who had served his student practice in the Kazakh steppes even before the Revolution, remembered several words and expressions. When the hapless trader heard familiar words, he rejoiced, he waved the other buyers away, and father made an important acquisition, after which he acted as an interpreter for several minutes until the locomotive’s whistle sounded. It was a graphic lesson – you must know the language of the people in whose land you find yourself. The destination of our railroad train was the town of Biisk, which was situated in the Altai District of Kazakhstan. There was no railroad track that extended beyond Biisk. We arrived there in the evening and unloaded in the dark. Nevertheless, our train was expected. There was a line of horse carts at the station, which had been sent from various villages and collective farms. Representatives of the collective farms walked among the people being unloaded, selected the ones who were more able-bodied, and told them to come with them. They helped those who were too weak to unload their things and put them in the carts. Those who were stronger walked behind the carts. In that manner, in groups of several families, the people were taken to the district’s villages in horse carts and placed in the houses of the local residents. An organizing hand was felt, which came from the local councils and district Party committees.

44

2 IN SIBERIA

In Siberia We had to conduct a two-day march from Biisk to the village of StaroAzhinka (Old Azhinka) in the Solton District. The village’s name came from the river Azha – a small stream originating somewhere in the Altai Mountains. Apparently, there was a Novo-Azhinka (New Azhinka) somewhere. The local residents pronounced it in one word – “Starozhinka” – which reminded us of the verb “storozhit” [to guard]. In general, we had to immediately get used to the peculiarities of the local Siberian pronunciation, and even to new words, which we had never heard before, with the exception of our father, who chuckled at our ignorance of the native Russian language. But it was even harder to get used to the country lifestyle. I cannot say that it was completely unfamiliar to us – we used to spend every summer before the war in the villages near Leningrad, and were accustomed to drawing water from a well, walking barefoot, etc. We were familiar with cutting firewood as well – our apartment had a furnace, we had to chop and cut firewood, and then carry it up to the fifth floor. But our physical weakness made walking any great distance difficult. Unfortunately, Staro-Azhinka itself, as well as all the places where we could work, was strewn over an immense area. The village was located on the right bank of the river on a truly Siberian scale, so that houses were 100–200 meters distant from each other, in a free and picturesque manner, not forming a street, but instead separate estates. Collective farm fields and maintenance services were located out in the steppe. You had to climb a rather steep road in order to get there. There weren’t many Leningrad families in Staro-Azhinka, maybe not even one except for us. We were lodged in a house owned by a family named Chirkov. But then, it seemed as if half of the villagers had that name, and the second half went by the name of Gushchin. We were given the second half of the five-wall house in which we had settled, and our hosts themselves lived in the front half, which contained a Russian stove and sleeping benches. All of the furniture was homemade; tough, heavy,

45

IN SIBERIA

Figure 2.1 A map of Western Siberia and the Altai region, as drawn by E. Moniushko.

and sturdy, fashioned by carpenters out of thick boards and beams. The collective farm helped us a little with food – some flour, potatoes. The hosts shared their milk with us. But we were not going to sit without work. During the first few days, having barely rested from the long trip (it appears we had been on the road for about three weeks), my father and I went to the collective farm office to discuss our obligations. It turned out that finding a fitting job wasn’t that simple. Father was offered a job as a night watchman, my brother and I, seeing that we couldn’t handle anything heavy, were at first sent to do light work, from the physical point of view – on tobacco. 46

IN SIBERIA

Figure 2.2 Staro-Azhinka village in 1942 (drawn from memory by E. Moniushko).

Under a large awning with latticed walls, women and 12–13-year-old children sat in rows. They cut large tobacco leaves from their stalks and sliced the meter-long and two-finger-thick stalks lengthwise into four parts with sharp knives. These dried out stalks were later chopped up into fine powder called “makhorka,” but this operation required thorough drying beforehand. At first the work was easy, but already by the middle of the day, the unaccustomed smell and thick tobacco dust that filled both nose and throat caused dizziness, our eyes got sore, and we felt nauseous. The foreman saw that there wouldn’t be much use from us, who were unaccustomed to such work, and non-smokers on top of that, unlike almost all the others. Therefore, as early as the second day, we were transferred to wheat harvesting. Combines did not yet exist in these parts. Instead, the wheat was cut by horse harvesters and carried by travois to the threshing machine, which, for some reason, most probably from the factory trademark, was called “MK” (MAKA in local dialect). A tractor, which was equipped with a tarpaulin belt through a pulley, powered the threshing machine. Only the hardiest men, even by local standards, worked there. The requirement there was to be able to hand armfuls of harvested wheat to the top tray of the threshing machine, to a height of approximately two and a half meters, in a timely manner. Those standing on top had to spread the mass of stalks and evenly feed it into the drum, managing not to misstep and fall into it, which could lead to permanent injury. Finally, a job was found which, even though it required all our strength, proved fitting for us. The grain from the MK was fed into a winnowing 47

IN SIBERIA

Figure 2.3 Inside Chirkov’s hut (drawing based on a 1942 sketch by E. Moniushko).

machine. Its weathered body had a trademark on it, which read “Kleiton” (using old Russian orthography – trans.), speaking of its advanced age. For some reason the work at the winnowing machine was described by the strange verb “to kleiton.” This general concept involved three operations performed by different people simultaneously – filling the bunker with grain, spinning the manual handle of the fan, and shoveling the purified grain out. Since we hadn’t yet reached even a boy’s strength, the filling was beyond our capabilities – it required lifting a significant load to the upper bunker, at about human height. Two jobs remained – to spin the handle of the fan, and to shovel the grain out. The latter job required less strength, but you had to work while bending over. Because of this, the “kleitoners” periodically switched places. During the breaks – ten-minute smoking breaks, dinner, and a short night rest – my brother and I collapsed as if dead, trying to relax our arms and backs, which ached from the stress, even for a short period of time. However, the local youth, who were not 48

IN SIBERIA

only stronger but also better accustomed to such heavy labor, apparently did not feel any particular stress. Overflowing with energy, the guys played all sorts of practical jokes on each other. For example, one night they sewed the entire night shift to each other with the thick twine used to seal the sacks of grain, and the foreman swore profusely because of the ensuing delay in the work. Gradually, we got used to it. It must be mentioned that the local guys and girls, even though they didn’t have a complete understanding of the conditions during the blockade, and could only speculate about them, never permitted themselves to laugh at our weakness, and sometimes even expressed surprise that we came out to work at all. Physically, mother was the weakest of all of us; that is why she found some utility in her ability to sew. The foremen considered this an important contribution to the common village economy. There were also amusing conflicts due to this. A tractor driver asked her to sew him some work clothes. Mother made him an excellent pair of overalls – exactly the same kind she sewed for my brother when he worked as a turner at the factory. Nevertheless, the customer rejected the work. In his opinion, one button, instead of the usual four, was enough on the front of the pants, and the belt had to be much lower than the waist, so it wouldn’t press against the stomach. The funniest part was that, having already seen the local “fashion,” we warned mother about it beforehand. But she chose not to listen to us and did everything like in a city tailor shop. Thus, the discomfiture occurred. The “tailoring business” went better after that – more comfortable for the customers, and the tailor had less work. Of course, payment for work done was in the form of barter – potatoes, flour, pumpkins, etc. Everything was useful in the household. We also had to learn the culinary arts. For example, the pumpkins, which grew to gigantic sizes here, were cooked in a Russian stove in the following manner: a pumpkin was cut along the “equator,” and all of the seeds were raked out from the inside. After drying, they served both as a delicacy and for entertainment. Then both halves were placed into the hot stove on a tray. When the crust became dry and could ring, the pumpkin was taken out, milk was poured into it, and you could eat it right from this natural dish. You could turn this into a delicacy if the pumpkin, with its seeds removed, was stuffed with fresh or frozen raspberries. We also had to participate in making sauerkraut together with our hosts. Everything was done in Siberian scale – not in buckets or jars, but instead in barrels, and the cabbage wasn’t cut with a knife, but rather chopped with an axe in a wooden tub cut from an entire log. With all of these other concerns, we could not forget about the matters of state either. Even before the cold settled in, my father, brother, and I all had to visit the district military commissariat to be registered for the draft. Father was approaching 55 years of age at the time, and during wartime men were kept on the register until that age. However, as far as I 49

IN SIBERIA

Figure 2.4 Work on a winnowing machine [kleiton] (drawn from memory by E. Moniushko).

remember, father was taken off the register for health reasons even before he became 55. The military commissariat was situated in the district center, in the village of Solton, approximately 30 kilometers from Staro-Azhinka. We had to walk there. There weren’t enough horses for work, so it was difficult to get a horse from the collective farm. A one-way trip to Solton took an entire day. There was only one village, Neninka (from the Nenia River flowing through it), on the way. Neninka was exactly one-third of the distance to Solton, and then, for about 20 kilometers, there weren’t any settlements at all along the road, which was really no more than a path. One could see only a few roofs far in the distance in a couple of spots, to the right and to the left of the road. Practically the entire road was level; but, when approaching Solton, you had to climb up three slopes, as if three stairs. Much later, while reading “The Ural Tales” by P. Bazhov, I found the reminiscences of Vasia’s Mountain, and those hills on the Solton road came back into my mind. It must be that the Bazhov tale reminded me that we felt we were gradually returning to a normal physical state. Having walked the three stairs along the Solton road, you found out every time that this difficulty could be surmounted – therefore, you would be able to handle other difficulties as well. 50

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Solton, the local capital, was a rather large village by local standards. Its buildings were practically all made from wood, although there was also a certain number of two-story structures. There were tethering posts in front of every organization – the military commissariat, the district council, the district Party committee; a multitude of horses, both harnessed onto carts and riding ones. Almost no motor vehicles could be seen. I don’t remember encountering any “red tape” in resolving our issues at the military commissariat; everything was decided quickly, but we still had to spend the night, since it was too late to return home. There were some sorts of sleeping quarters with bunks for that purpose. Visiting the district center allowed us to find out the latest news. Newspapers were rare in StaroAzhinka, there was no radio, so the news from the front spread orally, usually late and distorted. Winter was approaching, and new problems soon appeared. Our warm clothes, by city standards, and especially footwear were in no way fit to serve during the Siberian snows and frosts, and it was getting more and more difficult to come out of the house to work or do other business. At that time, father, brother and I worked as night watchmen at the grain dryer. It was a large and complicated structure built out in the steppe. It consisted of a wooden tower with swinging shelves attached to the inside walls, a large oven that had to be stoked with firewood, and a horsepowered drive, where two horses walked in circles. The turning of the drive’s shaft by means of a system of gears and belt drives started a large fan moving, which blew hot air from the oven and into the tower. At the same time, this drive caused the shelves attached horizontally along the walls to swing. The grain was poured through the upper hatch into the tower, and gradually made its way through the swinging shelves toward the current of hot air. The dried grain was shoveled out from below and driven to the granary. The work at the dryer was called “to swing wheat.” The most difficult operations were lifting the grain to the top, and cutting firewood for the oven. Butt stumps, which weren’t fit even for the insatiable Russian stoves, were brought there. The drying oven could swallow meter-long pieces of wood, but you still had to chop them. Chopping a meter-long knotted butt log was possible only with the help of wedges and a sledgehammer. When one of us came to work on the night shift, the work was just coming to an end, and the watchman remained alone on the hot oven, where you did not have to worry about the frost throughout the night, even though the oven stood outside, covered by only a plank awning from above. The crackling of the tower’s boards and beams could be heard throughout the entire night, as well as the rustling of grain pouring from shelf to shelf when the tower shook from the wind. I don’t think the watchman was really needed for protection against thieves. The houses were not locked in those parts either during the day or the night. You had 51

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Figure 2.5 A grain dryer in the village of Staro-Azhinka (drawn from memory by E. Moniushko).

to watch so that the dryer did not catch fire. Everything was wooden and as dry as gunpowder, and the smallest spark from the embers gleaming in the oven through the night was enough to burn down both the structure and the grain loaded into it. The watchman was also given a rifle with a single cartridge, more for the sake of formality, because I doubt that you could fire that “harquebus” even once. Warmth was the important advantage of that occupation. Having warmed yourself on the hot stove during the night, you could “stuff your pockets with heat” and reach home at a fast pace in half an hour, not freezing in your city overcoat on the way. At the end of November, my brother and I were brought summons from the village council. We were to report to the village of Novo-Azhinka for preliminary military training. We had to walk about 5 versts [3.31 miles] upstream along the Azha. The training consisted of our commander – a sergeant who had been discharged from the army because of his wounds – who assembled a group of eight-to-ten guys and then ordered us to attack a position that he drew in the snow on the hillside with his walking stick. He also commended those who had brought hunting rifles with them, and demanded that those who were “unarmed” make themselves wooden rifles out of boards for the next training day. After finding out that my brother and I were already acquainted with German bombs 52

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Figure 2.6 A homemade manual mill constructed by the old man Konyshka, which has survived to this day (drawn by E. Moniushko).

and shells, and that we had already shoveled dirt while building real, rather than training, defense lines, he decided that it wasn’t necessary to spend time on us, and that training exercise was the only one we received. On the other hand, from the newspaper posted at the village council, we found out that the Germans had been encircled at Stalingrad. We returned home with that happy news, with our boots full of snow from the attack exercise. Soon we saw my brother off to the army – he was called up at the very end of November. The summons from the military commissariat specified that he was to have five days’ worth of food with him when he reported. In order to get that much bread, we had to trade some of brother’s clothes, which he wouldn’t need anymore, for flour. Here it must be mentioned that life wasn’t easy for us. For example, salt was very expensive, and after 53

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spending everything we earned on food, we couldn’t afford to buy salt at those fantastic prices. That’s why we had to do without salt through almost the entire winter; we even baked unsalted bread, and got so used to the lack of taste, that, in the beginning, the army food seemed terribly oversalted. Brother was leaving together with several other guys from the collective farm, and the chairman provided a horse with a sledge, which was very opportune – since walking in shoes over the snow-covered road could lead to almost certain frostbite. Only three of us remained – father, mother, and I. By that time, we had recovered much of our strength and had gotten used to the local dialect – when an affirmative reply was required to any question, we said “Well” instead of the usual “Yes.” And we gave our last name without hesitation when asked, “Whose are you?” We got used to the fact that, when required, you could expect help from complete strangers, and that you wouldn’t be abandoned when in trouble. Once, in the beginning of November, my brother and I were walking to the village of Neninka, over 10 kilometers from our village, on some business, and were caught by a snowstorm. We ventured into the first house we saw, and they gave us shelter, dried, warmed, and fed us, and put us to bed without any questions. The snowstorm outside was explanation enough. We had to get used to life that was very different from life in Leningrad. In the end of December 1942, we said our good-byes to the hospitable Chirkov house in Staro-Azhinka and moved to Neninka, where father was offered a position as a mathematics and physics teacher at the local school. Half of the schoolhouse, which consisted of a hallway and one rather spacious room, was given to us. We didn’t have many things, so the move took just several hours. Immediately after the move was completed, the question of a job for me came up. Father and I went to the tiny local milk factory, hoping to find work servicing some machinery, but in vain. After they found out that I would be drafted into the army soon, the administration didn’t want to hire me and advised me to get some rest before I was called up. Feeling awkward, I had to spend almost two months reading and doing house chores. Regular correspondence with my brother had already been established, he was studying at the Barnaul Mortar Academy.

At the Tomsk Artillery Academy Soon, however, my turn came. The summons from the military commissariat arrived in the second half of February 1943. Again, like three months prior, we had to urgently find flour in exchange for some of my clothes, and bake bread. However, this time we were able to obtain flour specifically; the last time, when we had seen Tolia off, we only bought grain, and then my father and I had to go to one of the local residents who had a self-made manual mill. We spent an entire evening taking turns 54

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working it, to grind about 3 kilograms of flour. Something has to be said to describe that mill. Its owner, Konon Kirillovich, who was called “old man Konyshka” in the village, built it by hand. We had met him at the grain dryer, where he was the “chief mechanic.” The mill consisted of two wooden blocks. The lower, static one, about a half meter in diameter, had a hollow on top, with a skirt on the edges. The upper, movable block, slightly smaller in diameter, fits into that hollow precisely. The contacting surfaces of both blocks were armed with cast iron teeth – pieces of a broken frying pan – driven in flush along the radii. There was a hole for feeding grain in the center of the top block, and hole in the side of the lower one from which the flour came out. The upper block was put in motion by the handle attached on top. When in motion, the cast iron teeth crushed everything that got in their way with muffled banging. It was harder to turn that mechanism than the winnower. Fortunately, Neninka was on a higher level of civilization, and a mechanical mill was used there. We packed quickly – the summons provided only one day for that task, counting the journey to Solton. They formed a group of about 15 guys at the military commissariat and placed us under the command of an officer, a lieutenant or a senior lieutenant, in a rather tattered greatcoat and a hat black from soot. Our commander’s face was also dark, weather-beaten, and wrinkled; he seemed far from young. We set out from Solton in the middle of the day. Our knapsacks were carried in two sledges, but we walked, from time to time sitting down on a sledge with the permission from our commander, who was obviously afraid that the barely fed horses would get tired of such a load. Our destination was obvious – Biisk, the closest railroad station. Only the commander knew where we would go from there. It so happened that our first night’s rest was in Neninka, where my parents were now left to themselves. The group was lodged for the night together – the commander was afraid of losing his troops and didn’t allow us to go anywhere. I managed to see my parents only briefly in the morning, almost while on the march. Around 100 kilometers remained to Biisk, almost a two-day trip. The second night’s halt was in some village. The house given to us was so small that we took up the entire floor, pressing closely to each other, sharing our warmth. Then it turned out that some of us didn’t pack any food; so we had to share with our comrades. Therefore, when we arrived in Biisk, all of our supplies had been wiped out and our commander was faced with the problem of how to feed the “army” entrusted to him. The train from Biisk in the direction we were traveling did not leave every day, and we didn’t want to wait for it while hungry. The barracks of the town’s military commissariat, where we had temporarily settled, were not very comfortable, but we could cope with that for a day or two, if it hadn’t been for our empty stomachs and knapsacks. Our commander was 55

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offered work, so we could buy some food for the money earned. We went to have a look. It turned out that we would have to cut out logs frozen into the ice of the Biia River since last fall, and carry them up to the bank, so they wouldn’t get carried off by the spring ice flow. It was a job for experienced and healthy men, but our group wouldn’t be able to earn even the bread necessary for everyone so we turned it down. We did, however, find another option – clearing snow from a part of the Biisk Railroad Station’s grounds. Of course, this was not a very pleasant task. Spring was approaching, and the snow packed on the platform and especially the tracks was mixed with frozen refuse of all kinds. That was what caused the station management, in light of approaching spring thaws, to think of cleaning. This task had another element to it – clearing the snow off the station’s roof. But it turned out that the two-story building, with its small superstructures, seemed like such a “skyscraper” to the local guys that no volunteers could be found to work on top of it. Three Leningraders from our group got the job, including me. We were used to the far higher roofs of Leningrad’s buildings, working at night on top of that. While the main part of our “combat crew” used crowbars and pickaxes to pound at the results of the station latrine’s insufficient capacity, the three of us removed the snow cover from the station’s roof. Incidentally, those who saw Shukshin’s movie, “Pechki-lavochki” also saw the Biisk train station. We removed so much snow from the roof that, after finishing work, we jumped into the snow pile below straight from the roof. After finishing the work, all participants of the snow detail ate well in the cafeteria, and, almost immediately, boarded a train that was to leave that evening for Tomsk. But even at that point, we didn’t yet know that it was our final destination. Only after we settled in the bunks of the barracks to which we had been led upon our arrival at Tomsk, they finally told us that we were at the 1st Tomsk Artillery Academy (TAU) where we were to study and train. Although not everyone approved of the assignment, no objections were entertained. In the morning, all of the new arrivals at the academy (besides our group, there were several others, approximately 100–200 people in all) were broken up into platoons, commanders were appointed, and they explained to us that we would initially be in quarantine. Sergeant Major Liashko was in charge of the entire quarantine group. He was appointed from a number of frontline soldiers sent to the academy. As is the usual practice, our “quarantine” was used for housekeeping duties, in order to relieve the cadets’ workload. The work was sometimes extremely pointless. For example, one night in March we were led out into the street in front of the classroom building of the academy to clear the snow. During the long and snowy winter, the snow, which had been cleared from the sidewalk and the road, had formed a virtual wall between the sidewalk and the road. This wall was about 2 meters high and just as wide with almost 56

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vertically steep slopes. We were ordered to spread the snow evenly in the street in order to accelerate its melting. We worked through the entire night, and went to breakfast at sunrise. At that time traffic started in the street, or rather it was supposed to start, but alas – it became impossible to drive. The energetic epithets of the local residents addressed to the academy’s command staff caused the entire “quarantine” to be taken outside right after breakfast, and, by dinner, the snow barricade between the sidewalk and the road had been reconstructed. Soon they found work for us that could in no way be described as useless. We had to dig the pit for a large latrine in the yard of the academy’s barracks. You could say that it was an immense construction – about 15 meters long, 3 meters wide, with a planned depth of 3 meters. The location of this structure was established in one corner of the yard, where exercises had been conducted constantly, and where the snow was caked in a thin but densely packed layer. It did not present any protection from frost, and the soil was frozen to the entire planned depth. The necessity of such a structure became apparent only after the second winter of the war, when the sewage system began breaking down because of the difficulty in supplying and servicing it. Even though the snow began melting in March and you could work bare from the waist up, the soil did not yield to shovels and rang like metal under our crowbars and pickaxes. During an entire day’s worth of work, the ditch increased in depth by barely a shovel’s blade (although it is possible we didn’t really try hard). Lieutenant Colonel Liashko, the academy’s deputy commander (he had the same last name as the “quarantine’s” sergeant major), who oversaw the work, once said that the ditch would be filled faster than it was being dug. Of course, he used a more energetic expression for that. Be that as it may, that work lasted until the day when, after the latest visit to the bathhouse, they took away our civilian clothes and gave us our military uniforms. That was preceded by an examination by a medical commission, but it seemed as if this was merely a formality; it was decided that I was fit not just for service, but also for serving at an officers’ academy. After all, with my height of 173 centimeters [5 feet, 8 inches], I barely weighed 50 kilograms [110 pounds]. The uniforms that we received were, as often happens, only intermediate or transitional. Shoulder boards were being introduced in the army at around this time, and the tunics, with large collars designed for the former collar tabs, looked strange in combination with the still unaccustomed shoulder boards. The uniforms were not only the old model, but also not new in themselves; they were inherited from graduates of the academy. That’s how our first encounter with the term “Kh/b, b/u, r/s” occurred, which, when translated from “sergeant-major-speak” meant “used cotton uniforms for lower ranks.” 57

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We also received boots with so-called “three-meter bootlegs” – puttees, which often became the reason for cadets dropping out of formation when a poorly wound puttee unwrapped to its entire length. The look was not very attractive, especially for “mighty warriors” like me, with my legs as thin as matches. But the puttees also possessed a great advantage – during exercises in the trenches or when walking through deep snow, the puttees protected us from sand and snow getting inside the footwear much better than boots with wide bootlegs. We found out about that later, but meanwhile looked with envy at former frontline soldiers, who were allowed not to exchange their tarpaulin top boots for regular boots. The greatcoats we received were made for anywhere but Siberia, made out of thin green English cloth, well worn-out on top of that, and saturated with gun grease. But since spring was approaching, this did not distress many people, even though the subsequent winter made us recall these small details. The new cadets were allowed to send their civilian clothes home, but I didn’t use that opportunity because, when leaving home, I had put on clothes that could only serve for “one day’s march.” Naturally, the new cadets wanted to know how much time they would have to spend at the academy. But at that time, in the very beginning of 1943, when even the nearest prospects were not clear, not to mention timetables, no one, including the academy command, knew what the demand for officers would be in the near future. That’s why no one could answer our question about the duration of our studies and the content of the program. Moreover, during the initial days, we were mainly concerned with other matters. We had to accustom ourselves to the new environment and break the habits of our former civilian life. This was especially difficult for those who had been born and raised in these Siberian parts, not having any knowledge of not only war and the army, but of many things familiar to a city dweller. For example, a large number of young cadets, at least those who were called up in Solton, for the first time in their lives saw a railroad during the trip to the academy, or, for the first time, saw a city. When forming training subunits, the academy command took into account the various levels of preparedness, age, and life experience of the cadets. All of the former frontline soldiers, who had entered the academy primarily from hospitals, were put into one training platoon. Another platoon was made up of people of mature age, who had, for one reason or another, received a deferment from being called up. Finally, all young conscripts, with education of no less than seven grades, became a platoon of beginners, which received the numerical designation 27. Looking back at the past, I can also evaluate as rational and correct the approach to appointing platoon commanders. A rather experienced officer of the academy, Senior Lieutenant Sutugin, commanded the “front soldiers” platoon. He wasn’t all that strong in various military disciplines that 58

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demanded a good general knowledge base (as we found out later), but he was an excellent drill officer, had a “commander’s voice,” and knew the commands from the drill manual by heart. The “old soldiers,” the oldest of whom was no more than 25, accepted him benevolently, and, it seemed, were even proud that they had such a dashing and loud platoon commander. The “old folks” platoon, where you could even find people with higher engineering degrees, and also technicians and skilled workers, was entrusted to Lieutenant Vinogradov, whom we would come to know well, since he taught military topography to cadets. This knowledgeable expert seemed like an old man to us, even though at the time he was no more than 36 years old. He was very good at mathematics and geodesy, and in technical aspects of working with various instruments, and besides that, judging by his comments during lectures, he knew literature very well. Such an educated and cultured person, who was knowledgeable in many fields, was very well suited to lead people who were also literate, in the broader sense of the word, and more experienced. It was noticeable that “old” cadets greatly respected their commander not only for his rank and position, but also because in him they saw an older and more experienced comrade. Incidentally, his good manners and culture could also be seen from the fact he, probably the only one of the academy’s officers, never said a single unprintable word that I could hear. Our 27th Platoon received a very young commander named Lieutenant Vasil’ev, who had just graduated from the same 1st Tomsk Artillery Academy. As a rule, during this period graduates who had completed the accelerated program of studies received the rank of junior lieutenant, only those who remained as academy’s faculty became lieutenants. He was only a year or a year and a half older than us, but he had already fought as a private in the Leningrad Front, from where he had been sent to the academy. In our platoon, which consisted of “green” recruits, he commanded enough respect, although in any of the other two platoons he would have been too inexperienced. That’s why our platoon was the most fitting position for him in order to acquire command experience. Running ahead of the story, I can say that during our studies as cadets, we got along with him very well, and he left a good impression and nice memories. My first impressions of the academy were as follows. The 1st TAU had two separate campuses, and each of these had a large building. One of these campuses served as the classroom building as well as the headquarters – that’s where the shoveling of snow from one place to another and back again took place. This building, constructed of red brick, was of old design in the shape of a rectangle with a large courtyard. Despite the fact that the building had two stories in some sections, but was primarily three stories, the walls were up to a meter thick, and reminded me of a fortress. This similarity was enhanced by the fact that the outside walls of the building served 59

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as the outer boundary of the campus territory, and there wasn’t any fence around it. Inside the building, there was a normal school layout: long hallways, classrooms on both sides, seating 30–35 people each. There were also several larger lecture halls and a miniature firing range, no less than 50 square meters. Theoretical classes were taught there – political education, regulations, firing theory, and also some special disciplines – communications, combat engineering, medical training, and others. The Tomsk non-classical secondary school, which my father had attended, had been there since before the Revolution. We found that out only when we met after the war. The second campus was located about a kilometer and a half from the classroom building. It was a rather large area enclosed by a fence, in the shape of a rectangle, whose size I can estimate from memory at about 1,000 ⫻ 300 meters, and if I’m mistaken, then I probably underestimated its size. Unlike the campus with the classroom building, the large building there was located in the center and didn’t approach the boundary with any of its walls. The building had four stories and was made of brick, covered in white plaster with blue architectural details. That building used to belong to a religious seminary. In 1943, the cadet barracks were located there, the cafeteria in the semi-basement, and some other utility rooms – the barber, tailor, and shoemaker, and also the medical department and the library. Separate structures of this campus contained the storehouse, the guardhouse, detention cells, a garage, and artillery shops. A significant portion of the spacious yard to the right and the left of the large building had been turned into a parade ground, where drills, physical exercises, and firing service classes were conducted. There was an artillery park along one of the walls of the building, where two or three dozen of artillery pieces stood, of various calibers, models, and ages, so that it looked more like a museum than the equipment of a regular military unit. My first impressions of the unfamiliar and unusual surroundings gradually became more refined; they were enriched by new observations, but mainly remained as described below. During the war years in Tomsk, besides the 1st TAU, which had been founded long before the Great Patriotic War, there was also the 2nd Tomsk Artillery Academy (2nd TAU), which was organized in wartime, as well as a number of military academies evacuated from the western parts of the USSR, including the Leningrad Anti-Aircraft Artillery Academy (LATUZA), the Dnepropetrovsk Horse Artillery Academy (DKAU), the Tula Technical Weapons Academy (TOTU), and others. All of these academies occupied quarters adapted and assigned to them, or new, hastily constructed ones, which obviously did not have the same living conditions as at the original Tomsk 1st TAU. Of course, the quarters were cramped in our academy as well, especially during the initial months, 60

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but the barracks were warm and dry, and the central heating, which had its own boiler room, worked well. The cafeteria, which was located in the same building as the living quarters, could hold all of the cadets at the same time, and besides, we didn’t have to put on our greatcoats if we wanted to get from the barracks to breakfast and, after supper, to the living quarters. However, in the 2nd TAU, and especially in the TOTU, cadets who stood in the cafeteria line froze out in the Siberian frost, and, thereafter, they couldn’t get warm in the cold barracks where, as they said, vapor came out of the mouth, since the temperature didn’t climb above 10 °C. The daily schedule at the academy was very loaded. It included nine hours of lectures with instructors, three hours of mandatory self-study in a classroom under the supervision of the platoon commander, and one hour of cleaning equipment, which, in reality, turned into an additional class of studying weapons. If you add gymnastics to these 13 hours, the morning inspection, the evening roll-call, the time needed to walk from one building to another, all of which took up no less than an hour and half, and also breakfast, dinner, and supper about the same, then no more than eight hours remained for sleep, rest, and personal time. We didn’t have any days off during our time at the academy. You also have to take into account that floors were washed daily in all of the academy’s quarters, and even twice daily in the living quarters (three times in the cafeteria – after breakfast, dinner, and supper). This work was mainly performed not by the orderlies from the daily work detail, but instead by cadets assigned to help them who had not been released from their studies. In the cafeteria, the cleaning was included in the responsibilities of the kitchen detail, and once, after the cadets had left for classes, orderlies washed the floors in the living quarters. Still, all of this was done mainly during the night-time, at the expense of sleep, and after that we badly wanted to sleep during classes, especially if they were conducted in warm rooms. Another pleasant job existed – that of peeling potatoes. Approximately 1,000 people were at the academy and received their ration allowance at the same time, so up to a metric ton of potatoes was loaded into the pots during one day. Besides the daily kitchen detail, usually ten cadets were allocated for this every day. Apparently, it was inexpedient to allocate more, since the kitchen’s back rooms, where the “peelers” worked, were not that large, and secondly, and most importantly, the more people who were allocated for work every day, the more often a cadet lost hours of sleep. The idea was that it was better to do it less frequently, even if longer. This way, every “peeler” had to do about 100 kilogram of potatoes, and after that work, which was started right after supper, only two-tothree hours of sleep remained. During the first several months, the cadets slept in three-tiered metal 61

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Figure 2.7 The interior layout of the Tomsk Academy barracks, with a duty soldier present at his post (drawn by E. Moniushko).

bunks in the barracks – regular metal beds placed on top of one another and bolted in place. Afterwards, because the later classes became smaller and the earlier ones graduated, it became much roomier in the barracks, and the top-tier bunks were removed. Only two tiers remained, with a space between them – two double-tiered bunks stood next to one another, then an interval with two bedside lockers for personal things placed one on top of the other, then two double-tiered bunks again, and so on. A single-sleeping quarter could fit about 100 cadets. Even the two-tiered bunks made it difficult to dress in the mornings and make beds, not to mention the three-tiered ones. It was especially difficult for the new cadets. So, during one of the first days as cadets, during the class on the Internal Service Regulations, platoon commanders taught us how to undress ourselves quickly, place our uniforms accurately, and quickly get up and get in formation already dressed. During an hour of training, we practiced each of these operations about 15 times, and the 62

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platoon commanders did not yell, did not rush us, but calmly and precisely gave advice about what should be done so that we wouldn’t hinder one another and not waste time. It was practice, and nothing like some scribblers’ fairy tales about the commanders “torturing” poor soldiers. They made us understand quite fully that it was one of the elements of real soldier’s training. Even the order in which the uniform was placed during the night was determined by nothing more than the objective of facilitating quick dressing with all pieces of the uniform – after all, if you put the belt not under the tunic, but on top of it, it would hinder you when you started dressing, you would have to move it somewhere while putting the tunic on, and then you’d have to search for it. And if all of that took place in dim light or in the dark, not just seconds, but entire minutes would be lost on minor details like that. Without the prior practice sessions, it would have been impossible to not only do everything required, but to also avoid injuries which were very possible if someone jumped on top of your neck from the highest bunk. Probably, the most difficult part of all was putting on the puttees. One careless move, and the puttee, which was wrapped into a roll, became unwrapped to its entire length and rolled under the feet of neighbors, under the beds and lockers and, in order to roll it back up, precious seconds were required. I already mentioned that these exercises were part of practical study of the Regulations. In general, a lot of time in the program was allocated to studying regulations and manuals. At the entrance to the academy’s barracks, on a large artistically designed poster, the numbers of the paragraphs of regulations were written down. These paragraphs were the ones the cadets had to have memorized by the end of their studies. How many of these paragraphs there were! As far as I remember – hundreds! Here’s how extensive the list of regulations and manuals alone was: The Internal Service Regulations The Garrison and Guard Service Regulations The Disciplinary Regulations Drill Regulations Infantry Combat Regulations (in two parts) Artillery Combat Regulations (in two parts) Field Artillery Firing Regulations The various firearm manuals (rifles, handguns, revolvers, submachine guns, machine guns, grenades, grenade launchers, etc.) Technical Manuals (Service Manuals) for various artillery pieces, etc., etc. I will try to recall the main disciplines [subjects] taught to the cadets. Most certainly, however, some subjects have disappeared from memory, thus, the list of courses is not conclusive. 63

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General military studies subjects included: Red Army regulations Drill training Physical training Firearms training Medical training Military administration Political training. Specialized training, involving the following disciplines: Tactics Military topography Artillery training Artillery equipment and ammunition Combat engineering and sapper training Automotive and tractor training Communications. The length of studies during wartime was determined primarily by the situation at the front. That’s why the amount of knowledge the cadets had to acquire on each subject changed on the fly, but the subjects themselves remained in the program. At first we planned for six-months’ worth of studies, and we did complete them, and even had our graduation exams. However, by that time, the Battle of Kursk had already been fought, and they held us back for another several months, after which we had to take the graduation exams for the second time. I recall a little about how the classes were organized. Usually, all classes were taken by entire platoons. Only rarely, for example, for lectures on some general topics, several platoons or an entire class of cadets were assembled together. Except for medical training and military administration, platoon commanders taught a portion of the subjects, primarily general military ones. Instructors who did not occupy any command positions taught the rest. The only exception was the topography instructor, Senior Lieutenant Vinogradov, who combined a teaching position with the position of a platoon commander. A significant portion of our classes were conducted outside, in any weather, which on the one hand conditioned us, but on the other, negatively reflected on our ability to learn certain topics. After all, it is difficult to think about the interaction of parts of a artillery piece when the Tomsk January frost is getting under your thin greatcoat. The tactics, topography, and communications classes were usually conducted outside, around Tomsk, in field conditions. That’s where the firing range was located as well, for teaching us to fire rifles, machine guns, and 64

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handguns. According to the plan, we learned firing service next to the academy’s barracks, to where we manually pulled artillery pieces from the artillery park. Concerning the service of the daily detail – there were three main categories – guard duty, detachment duty, and the kitchen detail. Usually, an entire training platoon went on guard duty together. The unit duty detail usually consisted of a battalion duty-cadet, battery duty-cadets, and orderlies – three per every cadet on duty. The kitchen detail consisted of about 10–15 cadets. Only officers were appointed to academy duty. From time to time, in addition to the academy detail, cadets had to be allocated for garrison guard duty and city patrols. I haven’t had to patrol even once, although I have been in the garrison guard detail several times. In the summertime, when most cadets were out in the camp, the number of cadets on duty at the same time increased, because the guard posts at the academy remained the same, but some posts in the camp were also added on top. This was especially hard for those who remained in the city for the summer, in the winter quarters. With their small numbers, they had to provide for the same duties as in the winter. Only the kitchen detail was smaller, for obvious reasons. That is exactly the fate that our battery received – to remain in Tomsk, when almost the entire academy left for the camps at Taiga Station. That’s when we got to be on duty every other day. The difficulties with our classes were twofold – first, classes were missed frequently because of duty details, and second, the small number of instructors remaining in the city was barely able to cover the entire program. It seems to me that the reader now has a general impression of how life, service, and learning was organized at the 1st Tomsk Artillery Academy. Possibly, there was a lot in common with other academies, but I decided to write about it knowing that many don’t have a shred of knowledge about military academies. After this information, we can move on to descriptions of the people and about certain episodes that I remember best. First, the cadets. Unfortunately, not many last names of cadets remain in my memory. Here are the few who I remembered, for one reason or another. Evgenii Pustovoi. He was called up with me at Solton and was the son of some local district chief. He was used to having some authority among his peers due to his father’s position, which made him a little “smart alecky.” Since he stood out all the time and was noticed by the commanders, he was appointed a squad commander when we were in quarantine. He received average grades and could have graduated and become an officer, but he perished tragically in February 1944, during a disastrous accident at the 1st TAU (I’ll describe that later). Evgraf Andreev. Also from the Solton draft. Short, serious, and calm. 65

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Had a good general knowledge base and studied well. We knew little about each other while at the academy. However, fate brought us together late in the 1950s at the Govorov Artillery Radio-Technical Academy in Khar’kov. Evgraf was one class behind me. I know that, after graduating the Govorov Academy in 1958, he was appointed as an instructor at our own Tomsk Academy, which I think by that time had changed its specialization. Therefore, Andreev is one of the few about whom I know with certainty that he hadn’t died in the war. Lazarenko. Can’t recall his first name, or from where he was called up. He was originally from Ukraine. A merry fellow but loved to dodge difficult tasks and work. His comrades forgave him a lot for his merry personality and sociability. During one of the firing service classes, he hurt his leg (one of his shin bones cracked). He used that to continue to limp even after he got well in order to avoid assignments requiring hard work. Evil tongues claimed that sometimes he forgot which leg should’ve been lame, but he didn’t take offense. Odnol’ko. A Gypsy from Krasnoiarsk and a railway worker by occupation. He looked like a typical Gypsy and was physically strong and tall; that’s why, during the phone communications classes, he got to carry a German wire reel, which was twice as heavy as our domestic one (since it contained 800 meters of wire, and not 500, like ours). Odnol’ko attached a certain name to this drum, one that probably persisted at the academy even after our time, but I can’t write it here for reasons of propriety. He was a head above the rest in questions that required technical knowledge and experience of working with various mechanisms (artillery equipment, automotive skills, and so on) – his former occupation came in handy. However, he was weaker than most in theoretical subjects. His Gypsy personality often led to conflicts with sergeants and even officers, but I must give his due to our platoon commander, Vasil’ev, who found the selfcontrol necessary to quell these conflicts. When, after graduation, we were riding in a train to the front, Odnol’ko bitterly haggled with the traders at the station markets, beat down the prices twofold, and then jumped into the departing train without buying anything, followed by the curses from the profiteers. Davidenko. We didn’t talk much at academy, but when we were riding to the front, we had to receive dry rations for the two of us, because of the disparity between the ration size and the size of the packaging, which forced us to cooperate instead of each getting his own. More than once we found ourselves in an unpleasant situation when, accompanied by clanging of the buffers and the whistle from the engine, we had to run after our departing train with a hot mess tin in our hands. Vladimir Nedosviatii. He was probably the youngest cadet in the 27th Platoon, although, of course, the age difference could only be measured in months. Possibly, it only seemed that way because he did not look and 66

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behave like a real soldier, but instead like a schoolboy dressed in a military uniform. Immature pranks, a childish manner to lightly speak of serious matters, a boyish manner reacting to Comrades’ jokes and commanders’ reprimands. He was badly hurt during the accident mentioned above, spent more than two months in a hospital, and wasn’t allowed to graduate due to health reasons. Zykov. A lad from a desolate Altai village, who was completely unfamiliar with the customs and conditions of life in the city or in a large collective where one can encounter not entirely decent people. Due to his inexperience in such matters, Zykov accidentally got mixed up in some unseemly affair so that the question of his expulsion from KOMSOMOL even came up. If that had happened, then he would have probably been dismissed from the academy as well. And once again, we must thank Lieutenant Vasil’ev, who was not only able to notice Zykov’s diligence in his studies, but also his constant readiness to help his comrades in any difficult undertaking and share his experience in some manual work. Our platoon commander was able to explain this to the entire KOMSOMOL meeting, convince the comrades of his view, and save Zykov from dismissal. This entire story was forgotten by the time of graduation, and Zykov left for the front as an officer. Vladimir Semenov and Grigorii Shostak. We can and should write about them together because they were inseparable. Like me, both had been evacuated from Leningrad, and each knew one another even before the war. As more of a “go-getter” and a cunning person, Shostak tried to exploit the fact that our platoon commander was also from Leningrad to get certain indulgences. As far as I remember, this trick didn’t work. Before the war, Shostak went to a sports school and was not a bad boxer. Because of his small height and weight, he performed in the lightest weight category. They both had experienced the Leningrad bombings, but had been evacuated in 1941 before the starvation; otherwise Grisha hardly would have been able to restore his physical condition so fast. They were oozing childishness – as I recall, when, after our graduation, they gave us belts and holsters for our handguns, which we were to receive only upon arrival at our combat units at the fronts, Grisha and Volodia, when going to the city with their officer shoulder boards, stuffed the holster full of paper to create an appearance of a handgun. Shostak, like Andreev, is one of the few that I know survived the war. It so happened that my brother, who was stationed in the city of Juteborg in Germany for some time after the war, was a spectator at a sporting event where Grisha Shostak boxed. Perhaps I will recall the last names of other cadets from our platoon when talking of some events or incidents. But now – this is what I recall about the cadets from other platoons. Ermolaev, from the front line soldiers’ platoon, was a calm, serious sergeant of Herculean proportions and Herculean health, which saved his 67

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life during the accident. However, he hadn’t returned to duty prior to our graduation, and probably remained an invalid for the rest of his life. He was in the hospital next to our Nedosviatii. With Ermolaev’s consent, doctors cut strips of skin from his hairy chest and transplanted them to Volodia’s head, who had lost both hair and skin over most of his scalp. When we were leaving for the front, Ermolaev was not yet able to move on his own. Sapromadze was a man from the Caucasus. I can’t say what his nationality actually was, but I do know he came from Georgia. Like Ermolaev, he was a former front line soldier and he was hot, quick-tempered, like most Caucasians. Like Ermolaev, he was strong like a bear, but unlike the calm and modest Ermolaev, he loved to show off his truly impressive strength. During the firing service classes, he could roll a 76 mm gun alone, and when loading a 152 mm howitzer, he could pick up an almost 3 pud (48 kg – 106 pounds) round using only one arm. From our platoon, only Ageev possibly approached the strength of Sapromadze. Ageev wasn’t all that great in class, but during numerous housekeeping assignments, he replaced both a lifting crane and an excavator, as well as a tractor. He was only a boy in years, like all of us, but if he survived the war, he probably became a real Siberian Hercules. The sergeant majors in the cadet batteries, even if they performed certain command functions, were also cadets, and thus had to go to classes, take tests and exams, and live in the barracks with the other cadets. Of course, our commanders and instructors took into account how busy they were with housekeeping activities, and demanded less from them. During the first few months, the sergeant major of our 2nd Battery was the same Senior Sergeant Liashko who had commanded the “quarantine.” However, after four months he was removed from his post, arrested, and convicted by the court martial for machinations with battery property. Sergeant Major Turchenko was appointed in his place, and he was in that position until our graduation. Unlike the great regulations soldier, Liashko, the new sergeant major was somewhat fat, bald, and goggle-eyed. This was especially noticeable when, after forming up the battery, he stood in front of the formation and delivered his report to an officer. The allpresent boys, who were always there for such ceremonies, immediately asked the sergeant major why he had goggled his eyes. Turchenko pretended not to hear anything and the officers smiled with their eyes only. We could barely hold back laughter in the formation, because, in such a situation, the sergeant major’s eyes literally popped out of their sockets. In general, he was not a bad fellow, and could admit it when he was wrong, unlike many other commanders. Here is just one occurrence as an illustration. After returning to the barracks from a class, I found that a pillow had disappeared from my bed during the day’s general clean-up. After reporting that to the sergeant 68

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major, I received the order, “Find it!” Translated from sergeant-majorspeak, that meant I was to steal it from somewhere. While obeying the order, I found one of the beds in the huge barracks and “acquired” a pillow (now we would say “privatized” it). Obviously, the owner of the pillow knew about my loss, and naturally thought it was I who was responsible for his misfortune. And the owner turned out to be . . . Turchenko himself! Seeing that his order had been executed, he goggled his eyes, said “So!” and left. Obviously, a spare pillow was found for him in the storeroom. This didn’t lead to any consequences for me. I think the sergeant major decided that I had done it on purpose, as a protest against his absurd order. But I swear it was all accidental. It’s interesting that I was also partly responsible for exposing Liashko’s machinations with our uniforms (for which he was court-martialed). The nature of the machinations was as follows. Some property was stolen from a unit, for example, several greatcoats, but it was impossible to establish that loss because the cadet who missed his greatcoat would “find” it from another absent-minded cadet, and it was impossible to determine who exactly was missing a greatcoat, and how many. The “missing greatcoat” would continually move around the unit. When this process reached me, the travel stopped, because I categorically refused to act on verbal recommendations of my comrades and commanders, in spite of the fact that when it was cold, everyone was wearing their greatcoats, and I was freezing in my tunic. When the deputy academy commander saw me like that, I explained my situation to him, and the resulting investigation ended in the court martial. Possibly, knowing his predecessor’s history, Turchenko did not want to strain our relations, but more likely he was simply a decent person. As to the lost greatcoat, in the end I ended up a winner, since, instead of the lost used greatcoat of English cloth, I was given a new gray one, for lower ranks – very opportunely, as winter was approaching. The officers. I already talked about the platoon commanders. The specifics of a military academy, which was designed to turn barely grownup schoolboys into officers who knew their job and could lead men, demanded certain qualities from platoon commanders, including the exterior luster. Of course, Sutugin led in that – always dressed according to the regulations, but at the same time with some barely noticeable layer of stylishness. The collars of our greatcoats were not cloth, like everyone else’s, but always velvet. Buttons were not stamped, but were the so-called cast ones, without the skirting on the edges. The cap’s visor was slightly lowered, as the sailors during the defense of Sevastopol’ wore them, like on the portrait of Admiral Nakhimov. The same style persisted when addressing commanders. When raising his hand to the visor, he held his fingers clenched in a fist, and only after reaching the level of the shoulder boards, he sharply straightened his fingers, as if shooting them into his temple. After drumming out the 69

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standard report without stumbling, he ended it, as it was supposed to be, with his rank and last name. He pronounced “senior lieutenant” as one word: “Sen-n-n-tenant Sutugin.” Our platoon commander Vasil’ev obviously tried to emulate Sutugin in both appearance and behavior, and probably reached a degree of success with time, but if that happened, it was after our graduation. Back then he was somewhat awkward at that. Since he had just graduated himself, he did not possess a wardrobe as extensive as Sutugin’s, and his uniform was pretty standard. No matter how much he cleaned his boots, they could not compare with Sutugin’s made-to-order ones. When reaching his visor with his hand, he straightened it so zealously that the fingers would bend the other way and the hand appeared to be a bird’s wing. As to his address, it was obvious he didn’t have enough words in his rank. Maybe he would have rather pronounced “jun-n-n-tenant,” if he wasn’t yet a senior one, but alas, he was simply a lieutenant. Nevertheless, he wasn’t a bad commander; he could find common language with young cadets. I already mentioned several such cases when I was speaking about Zykov, Odnol’ko, and Shostak. Here are some more examples. When an internal conflict related to a seeming injustice in the scheduled work detail occurred in our platoon, Vasil’ev did not use a commander’s right to stop these disagreements with an order, but instead took time to discuss this with the platoon, telling us about some episodes from his frontline experience and convincing those who expressed discontent that their grievances were petty and inappropriate at a time like that. On one occasion, our platoon commander showed himself to be a principled and cultured person by sharply reining in one of the cadets who loved to brag about his “victories” over girls at the trade academy where he had studied before being called up. In the presence of all of the cadets, Vasil’ev said that, even if those were not inventions, a man must not blab about his affairs. I already mentioned Senior Lieutenant Vinogradov. Recalling him, comparing him to many other officers I encountered during my service, I would place him in the category of men with a “military backbone.” Incidentally, I wouldn’t put Sutugin there, despite his military style. Vinogradov wore his uniform not as a decoration, but as combat equipment – everything was solid, in its proper place, and nothing was superfluous. Everything necessary was always with him – sharpened pencils, a notepad, and tables for calculations. He set tasks clearly, especially underlining numbers with his voice, and, just as clearly, wrote everything down. He never lost his temper or raised his voice and, even during the most critical situation, his strongest expression was “Damn!” There are military people for whom the most important thing is external luster, uniform, the beauty of service, and its rituals. And there are 70

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others for whom the nature of the profession is more important – specifically, the ability to execute combat tasks. If Sutugin was probably an example of the former, Vinogradov exemplified the latter. I can’t say anything about the cadet battery commander, since I don’t remember him at all. Apparently, it was a purely administrative position at the academy, and he communicated little with the cadets. But I remember well the battalion commander, Major Sopov. He was from among the rather few academy officers who had combat experience. At that time, decorations – orders and medals – were pretty rare on officers’ uniforms. I don’t know if Sopov had them, but there was an entire file of yellow and red wound stripes above the pocket of his tunic. There were five or six of them. These stripes engendered respect. But it was apparent that the wounds had affected his nervous system. He lacked control, lost his temper over minor things, quickly making a transition from a normal conversation to yelling and obscene swearing. Of course, sometimes there were serious reasons for that, but still, it did not become him. Once Sopov assailed me for some reason. In response, I demanded an apology. It was so unexpected and unaccustomed for the major, that he wasn’t able to recover for a long time; but then he repeated the salvo of “expressions.” I had to go to the political officer on the same day, who listened to my case and promised to look into that. I don’t know what “looking into” consisted of, but the battalion commander never verbally abused me again until our graduation, although others still heard the words of the mighty Russian language on their accounts. This led me to believe that his irascibility and rudeness were under his control, and he “released the dogs” only at those who couldn’t or wouldn’t rebuff him. Or, maybe, he did not consider it necessary to respect those who didn’t rebuff him. The deputy academy commander, Lieutenant Colonel Liashko – the namesake of the “quarantine” sergeant major – frequently came out to the academy’s parade ground where exercises were being conducted. His tall, well-built frame was immediately noticeable, and platoon commanders’ voices could be heard from all directions, who gave the command “Platoon, attention!” and ran to Liashko with their reports. Liashko was benevolent and attentive to cadets. He was the only officer who noticed a skinny figure in a tunic, while the rest were working at the guns in their greatcoats. As a result, I received a new greatcoat, and the Lieutenant Colonel’s namesake was court-martialed, as I already mentioned. A question might come up, “Why didn’t the platoon commander take action in a timely manner?” After all, he couldn’t fail to see that one of his cadets wasn’t dressed according to the regulations. But I can’t blame the young lieutenant; after all, he was in such a position where he was materially responsible for any loss of property, and in the amount many times higher than the price of the missing item on top of that. Besides, maybe he was doing something to resolve the issue, but didn’t tell me about it. 71

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Figure 2.8 Artillery pieces in the academy’s museum (drawn by E. Moniushko).

But let’s return to Lieutenant Colonel Liashko. During the graduation exams, when we took them for the first time after the six months of training, a cadet of our platoon, Ageev, became lost during the firing service test in front of the examination commission. In order to help out the cadet, who was serving as the gunner of a 122 mm howitzer, Liashko had joined the crew as a pravil’nyi (it was the lowest qualification among the crew). With his Herculean hands, he was turning the gun so spiritedly, that Ageev’s mistakes became unnoticeable. It looked somewhat comical from the side – a lost cadet was giving orders uncertainly, and the sturdy Lieutenant Colonel, who knew which command had to be given beforehand, energetically turning a heavy mount of the gun. Of course, Ageev received a passing grade. The academy chief, Colonel Kharitonov, very rarely appeared in front of the cadets because of his position and probably his nature. We primarily saw him only on the platform during state holidays and in front of the formation on the academy’s parade ground on solemn occasions. He was of lower than average height, with a tendency toward obesity. The only time I talked to him while at the academy was for the following reason: I was the commander of the guard, and I led the latest shift to the guard posts, and after replacing the guard at the most remote post – the firewood stockpile – I allowed the guards to go behind the wood piles to relieve themselves. At that moment, Kharitonov appeared there for some reason, 72

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and declared that I wasn’t a guard commander but a herder, and gave me two days of arrest. That’s what loss of vigilance can lead to! My second personal encounter – a conversation with Colonel Kharitonov – took place during January 1945 in Moscow, at the building of the Main Personnel Directorate of Artillery, where I arrived for my next assignment after a stay in a hospital. The colonel was waiting at the reception as well, but it was clear that his next assignment could only be retirement, since he could barely walk with the help of a walking stick. After the accident at the 1st TAU (which I’ll describe later), he was removed from his post and sent to the front as an artillery brigade commander, but before even reaching his brigade’s positions, he blew up on a mine in his “Willys” jeep. “Blew up a second time,” Kharitonov told me, meaning that the reason for his removal as the 1st TAU chief was also an explosion. As concerns some members of the faculty, there’s practically nothing that needs to be added to the military topography instructor, Senior Lieutenant Vinogradov, above and beyond what I have already said. Senior Lieutenant Poliakov taught the subject of “Artillery Fire.” He resembled Vinogradov to a degree, but was more of a theoretician (at least, he seemed that way). Sometimes I could feel that he was hampered by the necessity of taking into account the cadets’ fairly low educational level – he would have preferred to teach his material to the students possessing the knowledge level of engineers. I didn’t get to observe him conduct practical fire, since our platoon did not go to the winter camp, and, during the winter outing to the firing range, I worked at the firing position and didn’t know what was going on at the observation and command posts, from where the fire was being conducted. There was a namesake of his at the academy, who was also a senior lieutenant and chief of finances, but I’ll get to him later. Senior Lieutenant Siial’skii taught tactics. His last name suited him, because when he removed his cap his bold head shined like the sun [the Russian root verb “siiat” means “shining” or “brilliant”]. Tactics exercises were usually conducted in a field outside the city. Siial’skii required us to take binoculars, aiming circles, stereoscopes, map cases, telephones with wire for them, carbines, and entrenching tools – the entire platoon was loaded like a caravan of camels. His manner in conducting classes and talking in general was scornful and mocking. He constantly tried to emphasize that the person talking to him didn’t know anything. The former front soldiers figured that out particularly quickly. They determined that Siial’skii had no combat experience and that their knowledge of military matters was worth more than his knowledge of regulations. The second reason for the cadets’ dislike of Siial’skii was his tendency to organize running practices. He would gradually increase the pace, which was easy enough for him, since he wasn’t loaded, unlike us. When seeing 73

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stragglers, Siial’skii would command: “Run!” He ran in front of the platoon, which stretched out to hundreds of meters, holding his cap in his hand and with his bald head shining. I must note here that he was an excellent runner, and this was very difficult for the cadets. Our cadet “wits” argued that Siial’skii was doing these runs because he was afraid to come home late for dinner and get in trouble with his wife. One time, during such a run through the streets of old wooden Tomsk, women with buckets stopped Siial’skii, who had broken away from the cadets by about 100 meters. Accompanied by the laughter of the approaching cadets, they were explaining to him that it wasn’t nice to torture poor soldiers, not letting him get out of their encirclement and run away. Nevertheless, this lesson’s effect did not last long. Siial’skii’s direct opposite was Captain Shapkin, who had arrived at the academy in the fall of 1943 after a stay at the hospital. Before the latest outing into the field for tactics, when the platoon orderly came to him to have the list of equipment for the exercises approved, Shapkin crossed out much of what he thought was unnecessary, but categorically demanded that we should take a saw and two axes. After hearing a puzzled question from the orderly, “Why?,” Shapkin grew even more surprised: “And how would you start a fire? We don’t want to freeze in the woods!” And even if the formal regulations were not in favor during his classes, there was a lot of useful information on how to organize soldiers’ life and the life of small detachments at the front. Combat experience was the biggest topic during his classes. The instructor in military administration, Colonel Diud’bin, was a peculiar person. He was a former lieutenant colonel in the Tsarist army who had served in various staffs and directorates and who believed that there was nothing more important than documentation – various personnel lists, registration cards, records of service, strength lists, food, money, and uniform ration cards, reports, directives, orders, etc. Every document had a specific form, requirements, and accounting procedure. He knew all these details by heart and tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to instill them into our shaved heads. He looked about 60 years old, was of small stature with high temples, and he wore a pince-nez on a string and high boots that reached almost to his knees, for some reason, with spurs. When he encountered examples of contradictions between reality and the requirements of orders and regulations, he was sincerely surprised not just by these facts, but primarily because, despite these differences, the army hadn’t fallen apart. Violation of discipline amazed him. I remember once that, while covering the topic of the “Card of Commendations and Reprimands,” Diud’bin asked Cadet Nedosviatii (who had served for about half a year by that time) if he had any reprimands. “Yes sir! Eleven!” was his response. The colonel fell to his chair and laughed so hard that his spurs rang, and the pince-nez fell 74

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from his eyes and was hanging by the string. After calming down, he explained that, after serving for over 30 years, first in the Tsarist, and then the Red Army, he had received only two reprimands. This somewhat eccentric old man provided us with a lot of extremely useful knowledge on military bureaucracy – a very necessary phenomenon, despite all the ridicule. It was unfortunate that we didn’t understand it back then and didn’t treat the subject seriously. The Administrative Services instructor, Captain Salnis – was he also the gymnastics instructor? – probably not, judging by his rank. As far as I remember, he worked in the administrative department of the academy. He spoke Russian correctly, but with a noticeable accent. Cadets and officers saw him at the parade ground, during hand-to-hand combat training. The academy had a stockpile of Japanese Arisaka rifles, which had been converted for training, probably from as far back as the Civil War. These rifles had a long, flat bayonet with the blade 40 centimeters in length. Salnis would give such a rifle to an “opponent,” telling the “opponent” to attack him. The fight would last several seconds, and then the disarmed attacker would be lying on the ground while the rifle turned up in the hands of the captain. It was the same result if the bayonet was detached from the rifle and the attacker tried to use it like a dagger. This was surprising since Salnis was neither Hercules in his appearance nor a sportsman. He was of medium height and regular body build and, on top of that, he wore glasses. Possibly, Salnis exploited the fact that, being afraid to cut him, the “opponent” acted cautiously. However, in matches where both opponents were unarmed, Salnis also always won. I think he wasn’t a staff professor, because platoon commanders, when bringing their units to his classes, did not salute and report to him. The captain was simply an instructor. Medical training was conducted by one of the academy’s medical unit doctors, Artamonov, who was a civilian, relatively young – no more than 35 years old. I can’t explain why he wasn’t at the front or even in the army. He conducted the classes well, paying attention to practical issues. During the winter field exercises, he showed us how to bandage the wounded and how to drag them from under the fire. He demonstrated all of that in the deep snow in his civilian shoes and an overcoat, carrying the cadets who pretended to be wounded. He taught us how to place a tourniquet on a wounded arm or leg – a tourniquet made of a soldier’s belt, which held on without any knots or fastenings! In September 1944, when I was brought to a medical battalion, I had made such a tourniquet for myself and even the experienced frontline doctors were surprised. It turned out that the useful experience did not spread widely enough. I have very hazy impressions regarding the automotive, artillery repair, as well as communications instructors. The first two subjects were very light in content. The entire practice of driving a tractor was limited to 75

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starting and then braking it after 5 meters, because of the shortage of fuel. The communications course was more extensive, but, while he may have been an excellent specialist, the major who taught it was an awful instructor. He couldn’t determine the main thing that the cadets did not know and what needed to be explained to them. We were all beginners, but he thought he was dealing with people who were not starting from ground zero, but instead simply needed to have their qualification improved. That’s why it was almost impossible to find common language with him. That is probably all I can say about the instructors of the academy after more than half a century. The only one to be added is the Combat Engineering instructor, Senior Lieutenant Serbin. The proverb has it that a sapper makes a mistake only once in his life. And both the Combat Engineering instructor Serbin and the Combat Engineering Department chief made a mistake when they thought there were mock-ups and models in their classroom instead of real examples of explosives and mines. This mistake resulted in an explosion. It happened in February, one or two days before the Red Army Day, and took the lives of 23 people. Serbin was reduced to private, convicted by a court martial, and sent to a penal battalion at the front. I already mentioned this event several times, and now it is necessary to describe it in more detail. On February 23, 1944, Red Army Day, the 1st Tomsk Artillery Academy was preparing to celebrate some anniversary, probably the 20 years since its founding. The 1st TAU graduates were well-known in the army, were respected, and, for the anniversary, the academy command expected a Resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Council that would reward the academy with the Order of the Red Star. Judging by the fact that it was already known which specific order it would be, the resolution had already been prepared and was simply awaiting signature. There were regular classes a day or two before the holiday. Our 27th Platoon was at artillery and small arms training in Room 11. A break between classes ended, everyone took their seats. Our platoon commander stood in the aisle between the desks, and Cadet Nedosviatii, who hadn’t finished solving a problem in the previous class, was at the blackboard. However, before he even had time to get down to business, a crash resounded, and everything around us was instantaneously covered with white and red fog, so thick that nothing could be seen, even your own hands. The building shook and swung and some fell to the floor. Through the ringing in our ears, someone’s voice could be heard to shout, “Gas!” That day’s schedule included chemical training; therefore, we had our gas masks with us. When the fog started clearing after a minute, silhouettes of people wearing gas masks appeared. Through the puffs of smoke 76

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and steam, we saw blue sky and felt the cold. Lieutenant Vasil’ev started to call the roll, but interrupted it immediately after seeing a bloodied cadet next to him. That turned out to be Nedosviatii, who lost his scalp, a piece of skin the size of a palm, from the top of his head. This skin with hair was lying on the table. Vasil’ev unbuttoned his tunic, tore up his shirt, and awkwardly bandaged our comrade’s head. By that time, it was already apparent that the roof and the attic were torn off our building above our classroom and the neighboring rooms. The door was knocked out together with its frame, and broken bricks piled into the hole and blocked the exit up to the ceiling, or rather, former ceiling, which wasn’t there anymore. We could get out only through the hole on top. Two cadets led the wounded out that way. We continued the roll call. Two were missing – Pustovoi and Zykov. The platoon commander ordered us to examine the room, to collect all equipment and teaching aids that had survived the explosion. We didn’t yet know exactly what blew up. During the search, we found a foot sticking out of the rubble of the collapsed miniature firing range. First we thought it was one of the two who hadn’t responded during the roll call. The majority of cadets were stunned and depressed by what happened, and the platoon commander had to rely mostly on the three Leningraders, who were already familiar with bombs – Shostak, Semenov, and me. After clearing out the sand and rubble from the miniature firing range, we found a cadet’s corpse. It was impossible to recognize the face, since the head was completely smashed by crashing into the central heating radiator. However, it wasn’t a cadet from our platoon – he wore high boots, and in our platoon everyone except the surviving Lazarenko wore regular boots. We surmised that the explosion had thrown his body so hard that he broke the rather massive frame of the miniature firing range with his body, struck the radiator with his head, and was covered with rubble. He did not need help anymore. After putting on our greatcoats and collecting all things, the platoon followed the lieutenant out through the breach. There the picture started to clear. The most destruction occurred around the area of Room 9 – the combat engineering classroom. The consequences were aggravated by the fact that a tank of hot water for the central heating was located on top of that room. It burst, and steam filled the air, the trickle of the remainder of hot water, which was quickly cooling down and freezing, could be heard. The commanders of platoons that had classes in the classroom building were assembling their units. Someone from the command was forming a group to sort through the rubble, find the dead, and assist the wounded. Our platoon commander sent the three Leningraders to that group. For several hours, we dismantled halls, rooms filled with broken bricks and entire brick boulders, and carried out armatures, boards – everything mutilated by the force of the explosion. Most improbable things were 77

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found. Room 9 had turned into a pile of rubble, torn and bent metal sheets of the destroyed roof fell on top, and on top of all that were two cadets from the platoon that had been in Room 9! At first it seemed as if they were dead, but doctors found signs of life, and both were promptly taken to the hospital. Moans could be heard in some spots under the rubble. After getting through to one such spot, we found Cadet Ermolaev, who was stuck between the rubble of walls. He was alive only because one of the walls near that spot had contained a large electrical unit with a marble plate on a tough metal support. That unit did not let the walls close together. However, it took three hours to pull out the living, but mangled, person from that trap. The second person to miraculously survive was the already mentioned academy’s chief of finances, Senior Lieutenant Poliakov. Poliakov’s office was located right below Room 9, and the collapsing ceiling would have squashed him to death, if, at the moment of the explosion, he wasn’t taking some papers out of a large safe, which saved the life of its owner. That’s how we dug him up, badly injured, but alive, with his head stuck in the safe. After returning from our work to the living quarters of the academy, we found our comrades there, sitting on their beds and solving artillery problems under the supervision of the lieutenant. Nedosviatii was at the hospital, Zykov turned out to be fine, but there was no Pustovoi. Zykov told us how he had been running to class after taking too long in the smoking room. Ermolaev had been walking about 20 meters in front of him, then further had been Pustovoi, and exactly opposite the door of Room 11 was some other cadet. Suddenly, and as it had seemed to him, without a sound, the right wall of the hall had moved from its place and connected with the left wall, swallowing all walking in front of him. Zykov himself had been struck in the chest by the shockwave and thrown backward, where he had regained consciousness only after some time. Later, the smashed remains of Pustovoi were found exactly where Zykov pointed out. Ermolaev had already been found and dug up. The cadet walking in front was apparently the same one we had found in our classroom. Despite that event with its unfortunate consequences, classes were not stopped at the academy. Already, on the following day, changes to the schedule were made, other rooms replaced destroyed classrooms, and some classes took place in the living quarters. An investigative team began calling officers and cadets for questioning. The picture became clear after the two cadets found on top of the rubble started talking. At the moment of the explosion, they were in Room 9, sitting at the farthest desks. After the break and before Senior Lieutenant Serbin had arrived, they saw a cadet come to the table with a German anti-tank mine and started showing how he disarmed them at the front. Instead of the usual blackboard, the front wall of the room had a display behind the glass where samples of 78

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various explosives and mines, both ours and the German ones, were laid out. That was where Serbin got the mine that was lying on the instructor’s desk before the break. The cadet who had messed around with the mine, like all the rest, including the instructors, thought it was a training mine, and so wasn’t very careful. As is well known, even an unloaded rifle fires on its own once a year. That’s exactly what happened. The whole display detonated from the explosion of the mine on the desk. Experts estimated the power of the explosion at 80 kilograms of pure explosive. Obviously, after 23 dead, several wounded, after heavy destruction, after a well-publicized court proceedings and conviction of several officers, there could be no discussion about the award or the anniversary celebration. The entire city came out to bury the dead. Of course, with the daily tragedies at the front, this wasn’t the main event, but for Tomsk, a city deep in the rear, this occurrence was indeed extraordinary. The entire academy marched in a column through the entire city, from the hospital, where the bodies of the killed lay in the morgue, to the cemetery, following the several trucks with open sides covered with red and black cloth. Several coffins stood in each truck, most of them half-empty. Next to the trucks, to the right and the left, was the honor guard with carbines on their shoulders. Crowds of people stood along the entire way on the sidewalks. A lot of space has already been allocated to this sad event, but nevertheless, I want to add some details, which show that the tragic and the comical live side-by-side. After the explosion, a part of the building’s wall remained standing precariously, and it was decided to bring it down to avoid an accident. The most readily available equipment to do so was a thick rope and a group of 30–40 cadets. When the rope was pulled, and the huge piece of the wall collapsed, there was a crashing sound, as if from another explosion. At that moment the investigative team was working in Colonel Kharitonov’s office, and a curious staff officer was listening at the door, placing his ear to the keyhole. After hearing the crash, one of those in the office ran to find out what had happened, so fast that he struck the curious officer hard with the door. The number of victims increased by one. Another practical lesson we learnt was – not to believe rumors! Some time after the burial of those who had died in the explosion, cadets started receiving letters from different places from which they had been called up – from the Altai, the banks of the Enisei River, from the Urals – all were asking for details of the accident in which 200, 300, or even 500 cadets died, and the more remote from Tomsk the letter originated, the larger was the number of fatalities quoted in it. The explosion destroyed the heating system and left the entire classroom building without heat. We went to classes in our greatcoats. But the tradition of washing the floor daily was not dispensed with. As a result, the 79

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halls, and especially the stairs, turned into dangerous ice skating rinks until the spring warmth. So that I will not have to return to this topic later, I should say several words about this particular “tradition,” whose purpose is, on the one hand, purely hygienic, but on the other, to make sure cadets didn’t think their service was too easy! Everywhere, the floors were washed once a day, twice daily in the living quarters, and as often as three times in the cafeteria – after breakfast, dinner, and supper. Of course, the main hardship fell on those who did the washing, but even those who were sleeping at the time couldn’t be completely safe, because the rags used for washing were always scarce, and sometimes “jokers” turned up who used the foot bindings of those sleeping as rags. Imagine the feeling when, after the command “Rise!,” you put a wet and cold compress on your foot. Or even worse, when the foot binding disappeared entirely – there, besides the cold, you were threatened by repression [with punishment] from the sergeant major. Regarding guard duty, being a guard during the summer did not present any particular difficulties. However, the Siberian winter made even the simplest of things complicated. And often, during a frost, after returning from your posts, you had to put your foot with its boot on the oven so that the foot binding would melt and get unstuck from the sole. During especially strong frosts, when felt boots were given to the guards, another difficulty arose. The changing of the guard was done not once every two hours, as usual, but every hour. The corporal of the guard, having barely finished walking through all the posts, had to start preparing for the next change. That way, even taking into account the fact that the commander of the guard and his deputy would sometimes replace him, the poor corporal still had to walk dozens of kilometers during the day in the frost. Another problem – if the carbine’s bolt wasn’t cleared completely of oil and dew when leaving the warm room, then it would freeze solid, and it would be impossible to load the weapon in case it was needed. A guard’s sheepskin coat was a nice thing, saved you from the frost, but it was practically impossible to move around in it, and it was also pretty hard to keep standing. “A guard is a corpse wrapped in a sheepskin . . .” (this was a cadet saying). The guardhouse of the 1st TAU was located in a separate small building on the academy’s parade ground. It did not have central heating, and a stove was used instead. In this respect, the guard was in a privileged position, because the firewood stockpile was also guarded by the same people, and they could select the best firewood and in the required amount. Kitchen detail was a different matter. I already described the peeling of potatoes – it was a job of the auxiliary contingent. Those 10–12 cadets allocated to the cafeteria for a day had to maintain the cleanliness in the cafeteria, kitchen, and back rooms. It was also they who moved the food allocated for the day from the stores to the kitchen, which, together with 80

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Figure 2.9 The academy’s crest (drawn by E. Moniushko).

bread, weighed several metric tons. Sometimes a group would be allocated from the kitchen detail to go to the city storehouses, where entire consignments of food were loaded into trucks. But the hardest work was considered to be the scrubbing of pots after food had been dispensed, and stoking the kitchen ovens. Incidentally, the kitchen detail was also responsible for getting the firewood from the stockpile and delivering it to the ovens. The huge pot embedded into the brick oven had to be scrubbed until it shined, lying upside down in it, while the walls of the pot radiated heat, and the remains of food immediately glued themselves solid to it. We worked in pairs, and the one remaining on top had to watch for his partner not to lose consciousness in the heat and sultry air. Everything had to be done especially fast so that the food wouldn’t burn and so that there would be time to pour water into the pot for the next cooking. Stoking the ovens was a very responsible task. If the fire couldn’t be started, the dinner would be late, which would disrupt the entire daily schedule of the academy, and that emergency would be even worse than war. The oven’s furnaces were located outside the kitchen, so the stokers worked out in the open air, under an awning, following directions the cooks gave through small windows: “Add more under number one!” or “Rake out from under number four!” If you got lost, the food in the pot would burn; basically, there was a lot of work and all of it responsible. The main problem was obtaining good firewood, and the tight-fisted storeroom keepers tried to get rid of wet or knotted (and thus, inconvenient for cutting), logs. Due to the fact that usually the kitchen and guard 81

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details were from the same battery, a secret bargain was struck, and the guards at the firewood stockpile “didn’t notice” their comrades sneaking into the stockpile to get a couple of good logs. Several times we used the following scenario: the guard would halt one of the cadets who had approached his post as if accidentally. While the guard commander was called and figured out the circumstances of the detention, the guard was aiming his rifle at the intruder and naturally couldn’t see (although he knew) that firewood was being carried out to the kitchen from the other side. As a result, the guard received a commendation for vigilant service, and the kitchen received good firewood. Our strong man, Ageev, distinguished himself in such operations. Bending over and supporting his hands against his knees, he alone carried away a log that several people were barely able to put on their backs. Similarly, we supplied our platoon commander Vasil’ev, who was still a bachelor and rented a room in a private residence, with firewood. In turn, Vasil’ev had been taught that by Sutugin, who had a family, and without the help of his cadets, his wife and children would have been frozen. One time a civilian female tractor driver, who worked at our academy, gave us an unplanned lesson in automotive skills. We drove a tracked tractor to the city storehouse to receive meat for the academy. On the way back, the tractor’s transmission broke down. Its cabin was located above the engine, and the transmission was behind the cabin, but in front of the body. Following the driver’s direction, we removed the cover of the gearbox and, using a small crowbar, we kept switching gears following her commands. All the while we sat on cured sheep carcasses piled in the body. The cured meat was ready to eat, and we kept cutting slices off and eating them, not forgetting to pass some to the cabin. Concerning outside work – despite the heavy class workload and absence of days off, cadets were often used for various types of work in the city enterprises. We often went to the Tomsk Pencil Factory, where we unloaded wood from the rail cars into warehouses or carried pencil sticks packed in crates between workshops. During the winter, we helped to clear the snow off the factory’s rail line. The pencil factory wasn’t just producing pencils. In some workshops, they were producing rulers and azimuth circles for artillery, officer rulers, stencils, as well as white plastic collars for uniforms. While working, cadets would acquire these items in all legal and illegal ways, that’s why many were glad when an order to go to the pencil factory came. The work there was not light. Crates with pencil sticks weighed 80 kg, and even when two would carry them in a litter, your arms would feel as if they were not your own afterward. For three Sundays in a row (these days were workdays for us anyway) in the summer of 1943, a city-wide Sunday volunteer workday was organized to build a railroad line to the new river port. We had to build a dam 82

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for that line during the days when the level of water in the Tom’ River was low due to the summer heat. City residents and cadets from all of the academies located in Tomsk worked there. Cadets, and officers, and factory directors, housewives, and district Party secretaries together carried litters with stone and sand. Only the joint brass band was free from that work – they were doing their own work, blowing as hard as they could. There were several emergencies. The pencil factory had burned twice during our studies, and the academy had to run 5 kilometers to save wood stockpiles. We couldn’t manage to save everything, but some things we did protect. During one winter, after a snow storm, we came out to the Taiga Station, which was completely buried – the depth of the snow, densely packed by the wind, on the station’s rail line reached a meter and a half. The cleared rail line resembled trenches, and trains stopping at the station looked like subway cars – you couldn’t see their wheels. Once, when it hit ⫺50 °C of frost, a very real threat arose that the city heating plant would stop operating. The coal stockpile had been depleted, and there was no one available to unload the arriving coal trains. Workers, who didn’t have appropriate clothes and were weakened from meager rations, couldn’t do that work out in the harsh frost. If the heating plant stopped, a real catastrophe threatened the city – a frozen heating system, work stoppage, etc. The hours and minutes were counting down. We were awakened during the night, and they distributed knitted masks that covered the face completely, in addition to the regular clothes. Commanders personally checked to see if the cadets were dressed right, if all their hats were tied – everything was done quickly and with attention to detail. Then we marched at a fast pace, almost running, to the heating plant. The coal was fed straight into the furnaces right from the flatcars. We worked until morning, then returned proud and satisfied, despite the exhaustion. And then back to classes after breakfast! An important event, a pleasant one at that, was going to the bathhouse every ten days. In the evening, after classes, cadet batteries marched in formation through the central Tomsk square, singing, as if on parade. This ceremony maintained the authority of the 1st TAU. Cadets of other academies always carried bundles of clean underwear with them, and this immediately reduced the solemnity of the formation. But our sergeant majors delivered everything necessary to the bathhouse beforehand, and the formation looked completely different. Local boys ran after the column and in front of it and people stopped, followed the column with their eyes. Usually we marched one platoon at a time, and only on the bathhouse days did an almost 1,000-strong formation march through the city. It was nice to hear approving voices, and even without being reminded by sergeant majors, cadets stepped so hard that the road surface rang. 83

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And the bathhouse itself was normal, only without a sweating-room [sauna], for which there wouldn’t have been time anyway; everything was calculated by the minute so that we wouldn’t be late for supper. On the way back, we marched past the Tula Academy and saw how the cadets there were waiting in the cafeteria line near their barrack. No one envied them. Now just a little about how classes were conducted at the academy – the main occupation of the cadets. Drill practices. After teaching us some basic principles, the platoon commander did not try to make us into exemplary drill performers, but instead he taught us to lead detachments in combat. After breaking the platoon up into squads, everyone took turns as the commander. The requirement was for the commander to stay in one spot directing the squads marching according to the plan. This developed the commander’s voice and the attention of those in formation – after all, a commander must be able to give commands loudly enough so he could be heard throughout the huge parade ground where, besides him, another dozen of similar commanders were practicing, and the marching cadets had to pick out the voice of their leader alone from the many-voiced choir. The commander had to be able to see the general situation on the parade ground, where several squads were moving simultaneously in various directions, and manage to pick out the direction of movement, and give the command in time, to avoid a collision. These exercises changed the preconception of drills as simply mindless goose-stepping. They were a living illustration of the Regulation’s paragraph that defined the concept of a formation as “A deployment of soldiers or units as defined by the Regulations for their joint action or movement.” Firing service. I have already mentioned that the academy’s artillery park looked like a museum. Both the cadets and the platoon commanders who were conducting firing service classes tried to grab only those guns that were lighter and rolled manually and, thus, easier to service. The guns themselves were manually rolled out of the park onto the parade ground, placed in a specified spot, deployed into a firing position, and aimed in a given direction. Then we executed various commands as if during live fire (there is a great number of various types of commands; their list in the required order of execution takes up a thick book of the Artillery Combat Regulations). After the end of each lesson, the gun was deployed into marching position, manually rolled back into the park yet again, and put into its proper place. Naturally, it was easier to deal with a lighter gun, but we weren’t always able to get it so, willy-nilly, we had to acquaint ourselves with different models, which was necessary, since no one could predict which guns we would have to deal with after graduation. Here’s a possibly incomplete list of these acquaintances [weapons]: 84

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76 mm gun Model 1942 (ZIS-3) 76 mm gun Model 1939 (USV) 76 mm gun Model 1902/30 122 mm howitzer Model 1938 (M–30) 122 mm howitzer Model 1910/30 152 mm howitzer Model 1909/30 152 mm howitzer Model 1938 Without even mentioning knowledge of the gun’s mechanisms, the skill in rolling was significant. You had to know how to deploy the crew, in which spot to grab the mounts, how to organize a “counter-balance,” and many other details. For example, it was very difficult to install the gun on the supports in the park. We had to mount the edge of the support with both wheels simultaneously, and then roll both wheels at the same time into the grooves in the supports. If that wasn’t done simultaneously, the gun’s mounts were thrown to one side, and they could knock down a crewman. That was exactly what happened to Cadet Lazarenko – we couldn’t handle an M–30 howitzer, and a mount fell on his foot. Working with artillery pieces demanded both physical strength and dexterity, and also accuracy, especially when working with aiming devices – the panoramic sight, aiming circle, etc. Despite the heavy physical load and the general complexity of these exercises, we loved the subject, since that’s where we began to consider ourselves real artillery soldiers. Firearms training. There was little time allocated for training with small arms. Almost without any theory, we practiced firing rifles, handguns, and machine guns. Only two or three people per platoon had the opportunity to fire an anti-tank rifle – there was a shortage of ATR rounds. We fired rifles much more often at various ranges and targets at the firing range. I had had a lot of target practice experience, although with a small caliber rifle, from even before the war, under the guidance of two excellent instructors – the director of the small arms club of the Leningrad October District Pioneers’ Palace, Ivan Mikhailovich Cherniaev, and the school military instructor, Fedor Grigor’evich Ivanov. Our platoon commander immediately noticed this, and I became his assistant in organizing target practice. After every set of shots, I had to lead the shift that had just fired to the targets and mark the holes – when firing at the 300-meter range this was a long and boring process. Once Vasil’ev decided to introduce a new element. Right after I marked the targets, formed up the shift, and started leading them back to the firing positions, shots rang out and bullets whistled over our heads. I gave the command, “Down!” and started thinking – was it an accident or . . . was it planned? After waiting for a minute, still not understanding what was going on, I started leading the shift to the firing position in short sprints, like in combat. The lieutenant approved and explained that he had 85

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decided to familiarize the cadets with the combat environment. It was he and another cadet who had fired, aiming two meters above our heads. Obviously, we did not spread word of that experience, since the platoon commander could get into trouble, or possibly not, since obviously cadets had to be taught to deal with dangerous situations. Here’s another similar story. During the winter of 1943–1944, we were learning to throw RGD-33 hand grenades on the steep bank of the Ushaika River just outside Tomsk. For the sake of safety, we threw them from a high precipice. Grenades were exploding down below, in a snow bank, without creating any visible effect. Cadet Odnol’ko decided to look at the explosion a little closer, so he shook the grenade beforehand, and waited a second after the bang of the fuse before throwing it. It exploded in mid-air. The effect was achieved, Vasil’ev swore, but, apparently remembering his innovation at the firing range, limited himself to that. There, on the Ushaika River, we practiced throwing Molotov cocktails at a model of a tank, made of snow with water poured on top. The bottles burst nicely against the armor of ice. We practiced live artillery fire at a range 20–25 kilometers from Tomsk. That practice was the only one for us, but those who had been out in the summer camps also practiced at the camp’s range. We spent three or four days out for the winter firing exercises, during which time we had neither shelter nor warmth, and the frost reached ⫺25 °C. We warmed ourselves by digging trenches and working with our guns. I worked as a radio operator and a crewman of a USV gun. The majority of the crew were former front line soldiers, and they did one exercise at such speed that paint started boiling on the gun’s barrel. It must be noted that future anti-tank gunners did not see a single tank in Tomsk – there weren’t any in the city at all. Many saw a real tank, and not a plywood model, only on the way to the front. We also practiced chemical defense. A cylinder with phosgene was opened in a hermetically sealed tent. The cadets entered it one by one. You had to hold your breath, put on your gas mask, and spend several minutes inside the tent. It would have been great, but not a single gas mask would fit my emaciated face. Air with a sharp smell of gas penetrated inside along my sunken cheeks, and I had to cover the holes with my hands. The second exercise consisted of a drop of yprite being put on the skin above the hand. After a 10–15 minute wait, the cadet had to wash it off using the special package that came with the gas mask. The cadets’ diligence was guaranteed, since in case of carelessness you were threatened not with a failing grade, but with God knows what – no one wanted to find out. The repair shop, where we were familiarized with gun repair, also turned out to be far from a calm spot. When disassembling a howitzer, the cadets made a mistake, incorrectly placing a cramp on the cylinder of the howitzer’s counter-balance. The cramp was thrown off, and the released 86

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spring threw the cylinder with such force that it went through the ceiling and the roof and flew outside. The instructor hushed it up, fearing that he would get into trouble for his oversight. My weakness was gymnastics, not because I hadn’t done it since childhood, but because I wasn’t yet in my normal physical condition after Leningrad. The platoon commander understood it and didn’t nit-pick, seeing my diligence in trying not to fall behind my comrades. But then, I found an exercise where I wasn’t worse than anyone else. During the summer, Vasil’ev took us to the bank of the Tom’ River. There we washed our uniforms in fresh water. They were very dirty, mostly from gun grease (after all, cadets had only one set for classes, guard service, and other work), and we started swimming while our clothes were drying. The lieutenant stood waist deep in the water and ordered the platoon to swim in a circle 10 meters in radius around him. I had to swim while holding my left arm above the water and row with the other one, so that I wouldn’t pass my comrades. After noticing that I was confidently holding myself in the water, the platoon commander allowed me and two other good swimmers to swim to the other bank of the Tom’, which was 250–300 meters wide at that spot. It was nice to feel that at least there, in the water, I wasn’t worse than anyone. Of course, the political training cannot be forgotten either. This subject is often ridiculed, but my service experience, and especially during the last few years, when they attempted to portray the army as something outside of politics, underscore the necessity and importance of political education. I’m not going to talk about studying the speeches of Comrade Stalin, the Orders of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, and so forth. A far more interesting example is when, one cold February day, there was a sudden formation of the academy in the evening. We marched in formation through Tomsk during the evening, without singing – it was too cold. We arrived and filled the largest movie theater of the city to capacity. We saw the movie “Rainbow,” based on the novel of the same name by Vanda Vasilevskaia. Do I have to retell the film? Muffled rumbling could be heard in the audience when a German officer on the screen picked up a small crying baby with one hand, took out his Parabellum, and fired in the face of the child. On the way back, we weren’t singing either – it wasn’t the frost; hate was suffocating us. A similar trip was repeated in the spring – we saw a comedy about the meeting of good soldier Schweik with Hitler. Thunderous laughter shook the audience and cheerful, merry songs sounded out on the way back to the academy. After all, the political department of the 1st Tomsk Academy didn’t work in vain. Time passed quickly, and the graduation exams were taken for the second time. We received new soldiers’ uniforms, although with officer shoulder boards, tarpaulin top-boots, along with tarpaulin holsters and 87

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map cases, and glass flasks which burst after the first attempt to fill them with hot water. They read the order concerning the ranks being conferred upon us, and congratulated us on our graduation. Nevertheless, of the documents we were supposed to receive, they only gave us our pay books, but not our identity papers, since a photo was needed for that, and there was no opportunity to have them taken in Tomsk. We would ride to the front without our papers – they promised that we would get them in our units, although it wasn’t clear if a photographer could be found there. Worse still, my KOMSOMOL ID was also without a photo. The names of those who had graduated with honors and were to be inscribed on the academy’s Wall of Honor were listed in the 1st TAU order. I was included. My personal file had an excerpt from the order about my assignment to a Guards unit. The academy was behind us – the front was ahead.

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The allocation of graduates to the fronts finally took place. My assignment was to the 1st Ukrainian Front. Several more people would ride with me, but the majority received assignments to the Belorussian fronts. In accordance with these orders, we distributed ourselves between cars when boarding the train. “Ukrainians” turned out to be in a more advantageous situation – there were no cars with capacity of fewer than “40 men and 8 horses,” and so we were comfortable due to our small number. The “Belorussians” were riding in a less comfortable four-axle “Pullman.” At the beginning of May, it was still pretty cold in Tomsk during nighttime, but considering that we were riding toward the west and spring was approaching, all of the cars were without stoves. That was fine, we weren’t going to freeze! The biggest inconvenience was the inability to cook some food from the concentrates we received. After crossing the Urals, it became very warm. By that time we had already learned to get out of the car’s window to the roof while the train was moving, to sunbathe and get blackened by the locomotive’s smoke. Back then, there weren’t any electrical wires above the trains, so you could lie, and sit, and even stand up completely, only having to duck once in a while when approaching bridges. We also learned to run on top of the roof and jump from car to car, to go “visiting” with our comrades. We started feeling as if we were home. This wasn’t surprising, since our ride was not in any great hurry – it took an entire month from Tomsk to the front. Before being drafted, one of the cadets of our platoon, now Junior Lieutenant Stupov (I recalled yet another name), had worked on a railroad as an engineer assistant. We hadn’t paid much attention to that previously, but we now constantly consulted with him on various issues. Stupov immediately found common language with the railroad workers, found out from them the duration of a stop and even the direction of our subsequent movement to the next junction. Our group’s leader, or the train commander, as he called himself, was Lieutenant Siial’skii, who was well known to us. He had our files in sealed envelopes, as well as food coupons for the entire group. Several times he 89

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sent an advance request to the provision points, and we ate hot meals, but throughout most of the entire trip we had to eat dry rations and whatever we could buy at station markets. We had little money, so we couldn’t rely on that too much. In one of the large railroad junctions, we also had to visit a sanitary establishment – that is, a regular bathhouse. There they fried all our clothes in a delousing chamber. After all, you couldn’t avoid fighting the “saboteurs” during wartime. The further west we rode, the more the signs of war appeared. We saw practically no passenger trains going in the opposite direction, mostly military trains went both ways – trainloads of soldiers and vehicles passed us going to the west, and to the east – trains with wounded, and also vehicles sent back for repair or the smelter. I was already familiar with that from 1942, but others were watching non-stop. Voronezh left a heavy impression on us – that’s where our train crossed the farthest extent of the frontline reached during the German successes in 1942. The train took a long time to go through the rail lines intersecting this large railroad junction, and dark blackened ruins could be seen all around us. Somewhere in the center of European Russia we were divided into groups according to fronts. Our papers were handed out to us. That’s where the experienced former frontline soldiers noticed that Siial’skii had apparently been doing some machinations with our food coupons. We decided to settle our accounts with him for that and for his mean tricks at the academy, but he unexpectedly disappeared, suspecting what was threatening him. The car with those assigned to the 1st Ukrainian Front wandered all over Ukraine for a long time. In Shepetovka, known to us from Ostrovskii’s “How the Steel was Tempered,” I missed the train (or rather, our car), and reached it only with the help of the military commandant, who put me on the brake platform of a fuel tank. Afterwards, I had to spend a lot of time washing at the pump where the locomotives were filled with water. Finally, we disembarked at Podvolochisk, where the 3rd Training Officer Reserve Artillery Regiment of the 1st Ukrainian Front (3rd UPROS for short) was located. That served as a temporary refuge for both academy graduates, who were assigned under the command of the front’s personnel department, and officers discharged from hospitals, who were waiting until “buyers” arrived from armies, corps, and divisions to obtain officers to fill positions that had become vacant as a result of personnel transfers or combat losses. The roughly three weeks we spent in the UPROS flashed by with a mixture of constant guard and other duties along with parodies of training. The Tarnopol’ region was one of several hotbeds of Banderite [partisans fighting under the nationalist commander, Stefan Bandera] activity, and that is why the UPROS camp had to be vigilantly guarded. Half of the personnel were doing guard duty and the other half was preparing to replace 90

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Figure 3.1 To the Vistula front: a sketch map of the Western Ukraine and Eastern Poland with the location where our cart was unloaded and the location of 3rd UPROS and 1645th Tank Destroyer Artillery Regiment (IPTAP) (as drawn by E. Moniushko).

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the first half at the guard posts. During the night-time, hidden outposts were also deployed in addition to the regular posts and patrols. The places for them were changed every day. People left for them after dark, so that a hostile eye couldn’t see where they were located. The outposts’ mission was to prevent night attacks against the permanent guard posts. Twice, the regiment was raised by alarm, and after taking several training artillery pieces, we went out on raids, combing the neighboring villages. Shooting could not be avoided both times when we took into custody suspicious persons who turned out to be Banderites. Despite all of this, the regiment’s command attempted to keep the sleep deprived and unshaven officers busy with political education, or topography, or something else. Every day someone, and sometimes entire groups, left for combat units, and new ones arrived in their place. And although it was clear to everyone that they were not leaving for some tourist voyage, they were envied. Almost none wished to sit in the UPROS for very long. I noticed the same in another reserve unit – the 27th OUDROS – after my stay at a hospital. But I’ll get to that. The non-permanent personnel of the regiment did not have any firearms assigned to them. But in the small tents, dissimilar to regular army ones, where four-to-five officers lived in each, several carbines could always be found, and ammunition rattled in the pockets of many. Besides, some officers also had unaccounted “trophies” [captured weapons] or domestic handguns. The commanders did not approve of this, fearing some kind of an accident, but didn’t fight it either, in light of the restless Banderite region where the regiment was deployed. Once an owner of such a handgun, after being assigned to somewhere in the rear (that also happened – for training or permanent positions in training units), and knowing that it would be hard to keep an unaccounted handgun there, gave it to me in exchange for some small favor – I think I gave him my remaining food coupons that I did not need anymore. The result of this “self-armament” was that, when I received my assignment, another two officers leaving at the same time joined me gladly. It seemed easier and safer to travel through the restless Western Ukraine and Poland in a group, and have at least one handgun for the three of us. Our route was the following: Podvolochisk, Tarnopol’ (now the city is called Ternopol’, but I use 1944 names), L’vov, Peremyshl’, Iaroslav, Rzeszow, and further west to the front line. The means of travel were motor vehicles going in the same direction. My assignment contained the field post office number, which, as I found out upon my arrival, belonged to the 1645th Tank Destroyer Artillery Regiment of the [Stavka] Reserve, which was attached to the 13th Army. But before I found that out, I had to acquaint myself with frontline, or rather near-frontline, life; that is, learn how to ride vehicles bound in the same direction from checkpoint to checkpoint along the military highways. 92

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I can remember some things about that short trip. Tarnopol’ quickly flashed outside the truck, but it seemed that there was no town – only piles of brick ruins. It was apparent from the ruins that the town wasn’t very large, but old, well-built, consisting mostly of single houses. Germans had turned it into an important fortress on the approaches to L’vov. Prolonged street fighting had gone on in Tarnopol’, which amounted primarily to our forces using SU-152 heavy self-propelled guns to destroy houses that had been converted to pillboxes, one after another. I had seen Leningrad under bombing, shelling, and on fire, but it still looked like a wounded, but living city. But, for the first time, I saw such complete destruction of entire city blocks over a large area in Voronezh, on our way to the front. And now Tarnopol’. Much later, in 1947, I visited Sevastopol’, which had just begun rising from its ruins – the impression was strong and horrifying, since the scale of these cities was incomparable. I didn’t get to visit either Leipzig or Hamburg, which, as it is well known, had suffered severely from Allied bombings, during or after the war. But of all the cities I’ve seen outside central Europe, only Breslau – modern Wroclaw – was as badly destroyed. I wouldn’t even try to count how many trucks we rode in during our trip (it was practically impossible to find a vehicle to go the entire distance). But it was never simple hitchhiking. This method didn’t work since the passing columns of military units did not take hitchhikers, and single trucks did not stop. Passengers could only board vehicles at checkpoints along the military highways. For readers who know little about the war years, something must be said about these highways. Of course, I’m only acquainted with them from external impressions, and only in the 1st Ukrainian Front’s sector, but these impressions are powerful enough. The entire weight of supplying the front with people, weapons, ammunition, fuel, and food to a large extent, lay on the backs of the truck drivers. Destroyed railroads were coming to life slower than was necessary. And, of course, the drivers could deal with their tasks only if roads were in order. Even the relatively good roads couldn’t solve the problem without establishing firm order and discipline along them. Even modern traffic police do not keep modern highways in such order as the military highways had during the war. Checkpoints were installed at all main intersections, and even on straight sectors, if they were long – these included a barrier, a dugout shelter where the checkpoint crew lived, a trench for self-defense, and an awning made from at-hand materials for those waiting. Passing vehicles and trucks were stopped, their papers were checked, and their destinations determined. If a vehicle had enough room, passengers, whose papers had already been checked, would board it. You didn’t have to run to the driver, ask where he was going, and deal with him – you only had to come to a checkpoint, show them your papers, and wait. 93

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When a car was found, the traffic controller would call you and put you inside, not forgetting to tell the driver where to let you off. Driver’s objections were not taken into account, and it must be said that drivers usually gladly took fellow travelers – it wasn’t always safe to drive alone. But it was good form not to abandon the driver and his car in case of some delay – flat tire, stalled engine, anything could happen on the road. Only those whose business was urgent, who could not afford to be even a minute late, allowed themselves to leave their driver in such situations. But, usually, the passengers helped the driver, or simply waited if their help was not required. Checkpoint traffic controllers were not considerate to rare violators. They shot to kill at vehicles that did not heed the order to halt. Old, noncombatant soldiers, or more often women, served there. Laundry would be drying near the dugout on a piece of trophy phone wire wrapped in colored plastic insulation, stretched between trees. I saw how drivers, who were perhaps for the first and last time on that road, courteously presented with various pocket trophies by the checkpoint hostesses. Normal life . . . The entire environment along the highways reminded one of complete order. Even road signs were all posted on painted white posts, with white and blue name boards, on which place names were clearly printed in the same type. In addition to these signs, or rather their posts, in many places there would be a growing number of temporary nailed or attached signs with conventional symbols of various units, which were understandable only by the initiated. On a checkpoint somewhere between Tarnopol’ and L’vov, we three were put into a Studebaker, with a mortar major in the driver’s seat. Apparently, he wasn’t driving on that road for the first time, and thus, on the approach to L’vov, he turned into a forest, where a trophy weapon stockpile was located. Having previously agreed with the stockpile chief, he was going to bring a German mortar – a full analog of our own 120 mm mortar – back to his regiment, apparently to replace their damaged one. Unfortunately, the trophy lacked wheels, and, for the sake of comradely cooperation, we had to carry, first, the barrel, the plate, and then the carriage of the mortar from the stockpile, and load them into the truck. To repay us for our help, the major, who knew these places well, stopped the car in a very picturesque location and showed us a view of L’vov from the hills surrounding the city, and on top of that, he searched the cabin and took out a flask and some canned meat. Especially after Tarnopol’, L’vov seemed not to have suffered as much, an impression that was confirmed when we entered the city. The streets of the recently liberated city were rather busy. There were a lot of people out in the streets, especially near the theater for some reason, although, of course, it was still closed. Narrow streetcar tracks had been laid through the streets, and it seemed as if a streetcar would roll out from behind a 94

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corner and stop near the sign “Tram stop,” which was hanging on a lamppost. We spent the night in L’vov, with similar travelers, in some empty apartment to which we had been directed by the commandant’s office. I remember that night – someone (possibly Germans) removed the gas stoves from the apartment, but gas was coming from the pipes. Our craftsmen attached a rubber hose with a metal tip, and made tea on such a burner. The next day, we were on the road again. Peremyshl’, on the Polish border, and Iaroslav flew by. The next night’s rest was in Rzeszow. We were restless, perhaps because we weren’t accustomed to such conditions. The locals, whom we had to ask, could not or did not want to put all three of us together, but only 2 ⫹ 1 in different apartments. Since, of the three of us, only I had a TT [Tokarev pistol], the principle of our division was determined automatically. After occupying the small room allocated to me, the first thing I did was to barricade the entrance from the inside with furniture. In the morning, comrades told me that they took turns sleeping. I don’t know which proverb fits this better: “A scared crow fears even a bush” or “Caution is the mother of china.” In Rzeszow, the temporary fellow travelers parted. I rode to the Vistula River’s left bank and crossed over a just-laid pontoon bridge into that piece of ground which would later become known as the Sandomierz bridgehead. Rode, not walked, because, out of some mysterious considerations, they didn’t let pedestrians onto the bridge, instead loading them into passing cars, even if they had to get off right past the bridge on the other side. Not having a slightest idea of what was going on there, and knowing only the name of the little farm or estate that was my destination, I decided to get a bite to eat. I tried to find out in a local village where I could boil some kasha from my own supplies, for which I needed a pot and a stove. A scared elderly woman who, quite naturally, didn’t understand Russian, couldn’t understand my explanations with gestures either, and kept mumbling something I couldn’t understand as well. When a tank with its hatches sealed drove past us and, after climbing the nearest hillock, fired its gun, I realized that it would have been more judicious to wait for dinner. I managed to find the command post of the 1645th Tank Destroyer Artillery Regiment by certain signs pointed out to me at the crossing and was immediately handed from one person to another and finally to the battery commander, Senior Lieutenant Iatsuk. After brief introductions – he wouldn’t even look at my papers, which I tried to pull out of my field bag – he sent me, escorted by his messenger, to take charge of the second firing platoon, which was deployed in its position. My predecessor had been killed in recent fighting, and a gun commander, Sergeant Shahbazian, who was supervised by the first platoon’s commander, a lieutenant whose 95

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name I have forgotten, was then commanding the platoon. Only the names of the regiment commander, Guards Major Zatserkovnyi, the aforementioned Iatsuk and Shahbazian, and also a gunner of one of my guns, Kochetkov, remain in my memory from this, my first fighting regiment. Probably, first impressions of the combat environment, of what was going on in the bridgehead at that time, were not conducive to the memorization of last names. The guns, to which I was led by the runner, stood on the gently sloping side of a hill facing the enemy to the west, and they were so well camouflaged that I couldn’t immediately figure out where they were. The guns stood in shallow circular ditches in a harvested wheat field covered by rows of large haystacks. Similar haystacks covered each gun’s shield and carriage. The barrels were lowered to ground level and their mounts covered with layers of straw. It became immediately apparent that the ditch differed significantly from those we traced and dug during practices at the academy. My new comrades in arms soon explained to me the nature and purpose of these differences. Exploiting the hours of calm, Shahbazian showed me the German positions, the positions of our infantry (as much as could be seen from the artillery ditch), and also the positions of the neighboring guns of our battery and the entire regiment. As I found out from him, our IPTAP (Tank Destroyer Artillery Regiment) did not have battalions, but instead consisted of six batteries directly subordinated to the regiment commander. I can’t say whether this was a typical organization of all IPTAPs, but that’s the way it was in the 1645th. One battery out of six was deployed in relative depth around the regiment’s command post and headquarters, but the other five, totaling 20 guns, were deployed in the forward positions, almost behind the backs of our own infantry. There was only one task to perform – hold the bridgehead and don’t let the Germans throw our forces back into the Vistula. There had been non-stop fighting from the moment we captured it because the Germans understood the threat that was posed to them by our bridgehead. They attacked almost constantly, with large quantities of tanks, so there was certainly enough work for the IPTAPs. The commander of the first platoon, who had been informed of my arrival by phone, ran over to introduce himself, hastily explained the situation that Shahbazian had just been talking about, and gave a practical piece of advice – don’t shoot until the last moment, until the attacking tanks come really close. Very soon, I understood the sense in this advice. Fortunately, the guns turned out to be 76 mm ZIS-3, familiar to me from the academy. Although it was an excellent gun, in 1944 it had become too weak to fight the new German armor. Its armor piercing shell couldn’t penetrate the Pz.VI (Tiger) tank even at almost point blank range. Only the scarce sub-caliber shell could help there. And even sub-caliber shells couldn’t penetrate the Ferdinand self-propelled 96

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gun from the front. We were left to hope that there would be fewer Tigers than the main German armored fighting vehicles [AFVs], the Panzer IV tanks. Out of 30 cases of ammunition, only two contained subcaliber shells, eight were armor piercing, and the rest were fragmentation/high explosive grenades. There was also a certain quantity of grapeshot, used for self-defense against infantry, which gave us a feeling of confidence, but, fortunately, I never had a chance to fire it. (For those unfamiliar with artillery I have to explain that, if a medium machine gun, when beating back an attack, fires roughly 250 rounds per minute, a single gun, firing grapeshot, can create a density 25–50 times greater, and a four-gun battery, 100–200 times; moreover, the bullets spread evenly across the front, not leaving any dead ground. Attacking such a battery is a hopeless proposition.) The Germans didn’t give me any time to get acquainted with my new regiment. Continuous attacks continued throughout the entire month of August, and it was only in the beginning of September, after realizing their attacks’ futility and having spent all their strength, that the Germans slackened their onslaught. The bridgehead remained in our hands and played a very important role later. Of course, not only artillery participated in the fighting for the bridgehead, and representatives of other branches of military service, other military specializations, saw everything that went on differently, from different points of view. To me and, as I can judge from conversations with my comrades, to the soldiers of my regiment, the scheme of the fighting was as follows. After short but powerful artillery raids, the Germans would attack with their armor. Heavy AFVs, Tigers, and Ferdinands ascended hills deep inside the German positions and halted 1–1.5 kilometers from our own positions. The lighter and more maneuverable Panzer IVs then continued to advance together with small numbers of infantry. It made little sense for us to fire at the AFVs deployed in the rear. Even in case of a direct hit, the shell couldn’t cause serious damage at such range. However, the German tankers waited until our anti-tank battery was forced to open fire at the tanks advancing in the front. A gun that opened fire, thus exposing itself, immediately fell victim to a well-aimed shot from the stationary heavy AFVs (Tigers). It must be noted that Tigers had very precise sights and very accurate 88 mm guns. This explains the advice that I received about not opening fire until the last moment. When opening fire from a “pistol-shot range” you could expect to hit with the first or, in an extreme case, the second shell, and then, even if the gun was destroyed, you could still get an “exchange of figures” disadvantageous to the Germans – a tank for a light gun. But if you exposed your position prematurely, the gun most probably would have been lost in vain. This also explained the additional changes introduced into a typical 97

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structure of an artillery ditch. Two holes were made to the left and right of a gun’s wheels – one for the gunner, the other for the loader. In practice, ZIS-3 guns didn’t require the simultaneous presence of the entire crew near the gun. Moreover, it was usually enough for only one person to be present. After firing, the gunner could hide himself in his hole while the loader would drive the next shell into the barrel. Then the gunner could take his place, aim, and fire, while the loader would be taking cover at that time. Even if the gun took a direct hit, at least one of the two had a chance to survive. The other crew members were spread out through the holes, “side pockets” of the trench. Practical experience, which this regiment had accumulated as far back as the Battle of Kursk, allowed it to minimize its casualties. During the more than one-and-a-half months of fighting in the bridgehead, the regiment replaced its equipment three times, receiving new and repaired guns to replace the damaged and destroyed ones, and kept its fighting efficiency, while receiving almost no personnel replacements at all. No matter how much I tried to assemble everything that remained in my memory about the fighting in the bridgehead into a connected, sequential chain of events, nothing came of it. Separate episodes, separate moments, not connected to each other, maybe not even in chronological order, appear in my memory like pieces of a torn film. So that’s how I’ll have to write them down.

Episode 1 It is a quiet August morning. The western side of the sky is still noticeably darker than the eastern side. I stand in the artillery ditch and look westward, toward the enemy. I see how, in a pretty wide sector of the horizon, maybe 30 degrees, small sparkling dots quickly take off and disappear in the lighter sky above, as if a flock of luminescent birds is taking flight. A thought of the Moscow salute, which I have never seen and imagined only by means of a color panel in the Lenin Room of my academy, made by an amateur painter, flashes through my mind. Having noticed my glance, Sergeant Shahbazian also looks westward and suddenly gives a hard shove on my shoulder, so that I fall down. He falls next to me, and I hear his voice: “Stay down! Vaniusha’s playing!” In several seconds, there is a thunder of explosions around us, whistling of fragments, chunks of falling soil plop, and the sharp smell of burned explosives. Well, it’s starting! Crews run to their places without command and get ready for battle. This was my first acquaintance with “Vaniusha” – the German analog of our “Katiusha.” Based on personal experience, I can say that the German sixbarreled mortar was significantly inferior to our BM-13. Later, during the fighting in Silesia in March 1945, we were hit by an accidental salvo of BM-13, so I can be the judge. 98

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Episode 2 We’re in the middle of a battle against tanks. The guns that the Germans have approached closely to are already responding. My platoon is silent. The first platoon’s commander runs over from the right flank, ducking, and jumps down into the trench: “Do you have anti-tank grenades?” I nod affirmatively and dive under a thin overhead cover, into the gun “pocket” – an 8-meter-long ditch into which the gun is rolled for camouflage and defense. The “pocket” appears empty now, because the gun stands outside in its position. There, in the pocket’s depth, several grenades are lying together with my greatcoat, knapsack, and field bag. I grope for them in the semi-darkness and, as if falling through to somewhere, I regain consciousness from smoke suffocating me. Something is lying on top of me, pressing me to the ground, and tongues of flame can be seen on top. I climb out, pushing the collapsed stakes from the cover, and branches and straw aside. The straw on top of the “pocket’s” cover is in flames. First impression is as if I’m in a silent film. There, close to us, a shell explodes. Here, about 100 meters from us, a gun fires, I can feel the earth shake, but there isn’t the slightest sound except ringing in my ears. I look around – there is a hole next to me, half filled with earth moved due to the proximity of the explosion. There’s still smoke coming out of the crater next to it. The lieutenant lies buried in this hole – only his head and one arm are on the surface. I see that he’s yelling something, opening his mouth wide, but all I hear is silence. I pull him by the collar of his greatcoat. (A thought flashes: “Why did he wear his greatcoat, it’s not cold?”) I throw the loose soil aside with my hands. Finally, I help him get out. The lieutenant ducks and moves while bent at the waist, while I walk at my full height. I don’t hear the shooting, the explosions – I’m not scared. Only after several hours passed did some sounds start to get through to me. I began hearing everything in several days, although the ringing in my ears doesn’t stop. And so it remains, although almost 50 years have passed. Doctors say: “If it was treated immediately . . .” The lieutenant said that our position was hit by the artillery raid, a shell hit the cover of the gun pocket and collapsed it, exploding somewhere above my head, in the straw and stakes of the cover, and that a second one almost buried him in the hole. According to him, about two minutes passed before I came to and crawled out, but, in his state, time dragged slowly, probably everything happened faster . . .

Episode 3 The latest German attack – regimental intelligence would later say that up to 120 German tanks were counted in our regiment’s sector. Two or three dozen of them remained there, hit by the guns of our batteries. There is a 99

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Figure 3.2 Soldiers’ native wit – three guns pulled by a single truck (drawn by E. Moniushko).

small farm – a house and a shed – to the left of our position, about 100 meters away. Someone from the retreating infantry, apparently to justify their flight, waves his hand, “There is tank behind the house . . .” My gun is pointed in another direction. I indicate the direction to Shahbazian, and in concert, the guys turn the gun 90 degrees to the left. We wait. But nothing happens – nothing can be heard. I take an anti-tank grenade, crawl toward the house. Empty! Damn you! Was I scared? Maybe, but I was really afraid that the men would see my fear. It seems they didn’t, but instead looked at me with respect.

Episode 4 After the latest engagement and after an “exchange of guns for tanks” with the attacking “Fritzes,” the regiment is pulled back a little to the rear. I am sent to the artillery supply depot to get new guns. I need to get three guns, but they give me one Studebaker. The experienced driver reassures me, “It’s OK, we’ll manage!” I’m not sure about that, but trust in his wit and experience. We arrive at the depot in the evening; it turns out that our turn will come the next morning. The driver drives the Studebaker into a ravine, where several other trucks have already stopped for the night, 100

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takes out a shovel, and starts digging. He cuts into the side of the ravine to make cover for at least the front of the truck, for the engine. Estimating the time needed, I decide that even if both of us dig until the morning, we’ll barely put the car in place by dawn. But in the morning we’ll have to get out to the depot anyway. The driver objects, “Fritz won’t come bombing at night anyway, but we can expect ‘guests’ in the morning.” The depot is an attractive spot for them. Looking at us, the drivers of the other trucks also take out their shovels. In the morning the driver backs the truck into the depot, parks it with rear wheels in a side ditch, opens the rear like a walkway, and both of us – here’s where the academy training helped – roll one gun onto the platform. The barrel sticks out over the cabin, like on a tank. We attach the second ZIS to a hook in the rear of the truck. The driver looks for a piece of cable to attach the third gun. An idea comes – hook the third gun’s mounts around the second gun’s muzzle brake. The two of us can’t do it, we have to ask for help – after all, it would only take a minute. Hooray, it works! We’re “home” by dinner time, the guns leave for their positions, where they will be deployed after dark. We can sleep for a couple of hours . . .

Episode 5 It was another day of heavy fighting. As always, after paying a high price in tanks, the Germans drive a wedge into our defense; they advance faster than our infantry and artillery can retreat. Everything is mixed up; a “layered cake” has formed. Ahead of us and to our rear are both our troops and those of the enemy. Everything hangs by a thread, and a little more effort and the Germans will reach the Vistula crossings . . . The commander calls for air support. IL-2 ground attack aircraft literally “walk on our heads,” slamming everything, and there both our soldiers and the Fritzes are at different ends of one and the same ravine, both hiding from bombs and rockets from above. Tanks that weren’t destroyed by our guns are burning, skirmishes flare up between our infantry and the wedged-in “Fritzes.” Having lost their armor, the “Fritzes” withdraw hastily, and the situation is finally restored. Of course, our own IL aircraft also killed some of us, but there was no other way to save the bridgehead. I found out from memoir literature that among those aircraft working above us was N.I. Kamanin, one of the first five Heroes of the Soviet Union and also G. Beregovoi, one of the first cosmonauts. In the heat of battle, a messenger from the battery commander runs by. We’re ordered to roll the guns to the right, closer to the first platoon’s positions. I command: “All clear!” The gun is in marching configuration, and we set out. First, we’re going to deploy the first gun in the new place, and then the other. It’s fortunate that we have to roll downhill, since it’s fast and easy. After hearing the whistling of shells, we fall and crawl to the 101

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side ditches. The raid is over. One glance is enough to realize that we won’t get to shoot – a fragment has punctured the gun’s recuperator [recoil mechanism]. The other crew catches up to us from uphill. The gun’s commander holds the two pud (1 pud ⫽ 16 kilograms or 35.2 pounds) wedge-like breech-block in his arms, like a baby. He yells: “Direct hit! I barely got the breech-block out.” I assemble the men and we retreat in the direction of a grove, which should be occupied by our forces. To do so, we have to cross a field that has a huge haystack in the middle, perhaps 5 meters high and dozens of meters long, between us and the grove. The Germans can fire at the field from the left with machine guns, and we can get from the side ditch to the haystack only by crawling in a deep furrow for about 200 meters. I let my men go ahead of me, one after another – first of all, since the commander retreats last, like the captain of a sinking ship, and second, I’m not as strong and adroit as the majority of my soldiers, and I would be holding them up. Everyone crawled away; now it’s my turn. The soldier creeping before me suddenly freezes, pressing himself to the ground. The fire becomes very intense. I yell at him to take off his submachine gun. He pulls the sling of the PPSh [submachine gun] hanging over his shoulder. A bullet has already hit the stock. The fire subsides. Apparently, I guessed correctly: the submachine gun sticking up over the crawling soldier’s back was visible to a machine gunner. It’s easier for me – I only have a TT [Tokarev pistol]. We crawl forward a bit more, when I run into a drum magazine from a submachine gun filled with ammunition. I take it with me. We finally assemble behind the haystack and look where to move to next. The owner of the magazine I had picked up turns up: “Here, look, mine is marked, there’s a scratch from a fragment!” Soon I hear the sergeant reprimanding him, “Bungler! Must the lieutenant pick everything up behind you?” Although I’m not a lieutenant yet, it still feels nice . . . Soon, the Germans set the haystack on fire with a shell, and that works for us; we escape into the forest using the smoke as cover. We bury our dead comrades in the evening. The bodies wrapped in ground sheets are placed in a half-filled and slightly straightened trench. Comrades-in-arms, with whom we didn’t have time to get acquainted. Two short speeches. The earth falls with a dull sound. Flashes of officers’ handguns punctuate the darkness. I salute with everyone. The grave is marked on the commander’s map, but there is no marker here. Who knows who will be in possession of this land tomorrow, or the day after? There is a wide hollow in front of the gun, covering it from the front. There is a tank on the other side of the hollow, conveniently revealing its side to us. The gunner catches it in his crosshairs. The tank is not heavy, and it’s showing its flank at that – the armor piercing shell loaded into the gun will be enough here. A machine gunner next to us (there was a light or medium machine gun for each gun in the IPTAP) suddenly observes the 102

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front end of a heavy tank appearing from the hollow right in front of the gun – a long barrel with a characteristic knob of the muzzle brake. A Tiger! The gunner doesn’t see it yet in the field of view of his gun sight. And the machine gunner fires a burst at the tank, like a shotgun against an elephant, to attract the gunner’s attention. The gun’s barrel is lowered immediately, a shot rings out, and the armor-piercing shell ricochets off the tank’s front armor. And it was at a range of only 50 meters! “Subcaliber!” the gunner yells desperately. The breech-block clanks shut, swallowing up the round. Fortunately, both the tank’s gun and its driver are looking upward since the tank hasn’t yet gotten out of the hollow. The sub-caliber shell hits the bottom of the turret at almost point blank range. Apparently, something bursts inside, a blue light flashes from all of the tank’s ports. While the tank doesn’t burst into flames, its crew tries to bail out through the hatches. A machine gun burst finishes the business . . . The soldiers that survived the severe battle assemble in a grove, and the battery commander, Iatsuk, sits on a tree stump. Some papers are in front of him on an empty ammo box. He looks through them one after another and signs them. I approach from behind and look over his shoulder. The senior lieutenant is about to sign the prepared notice of my death – a socalled “pohoronka.” I clap him on the shoulder, he turns around, “Ah, you’re alive!” – the “pohoronka” is crumpled and thrown to the side. Had I appeared one minute later, the notice would have been sent to the addressee. Although, which addressee? The regiment doesn’t have my papers; they weren’t approved yet and have already burned up somewhere. My soldiers call to me: “Comrade lieutenant!” They stubbornly refuse to use the word “junior.” What’s that? A sign of respect, or are they accustomed to the rank of my dead predecessor? “Comrade lieutenant! Please eat!” A large basket of raw eggs. There is nothing else – no bread, no salt – but I swallow a dozen, one after another, raw, throwing the empty shells aside. If I had an ear for music, I could sing in an opera. What can you do? You don’t know when you’ll manage to “fill up” the next time?

Episode 6 The tension of the summer fighting has already slackened, our defense has solidified, and maybe that’s why my caution and attention weakened. I was hit by a random shot. The feeling was as if my leg was hit by something hard simultaneously from two sides. I didn’t immediately understand what happened. I rashly pulled the boot off myself, probably it would have had to be cut off later anyway – the joint was punctured, and there was severe pain when I attempted to move the foot. There were already soldiers next to me, but, remembering Artamonov’s lessons, I took my belt off and made a tourniquet. I gave the holster with my sidearm to the gunner 103

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Kochetkov – the sidearm was my “own,” unaccounted for, and it didn’t have to be passed on officially. They helped me get to, or rather carried me in their arms to, that bridge where our regimental medical vehicle – a trophy of French origin and Renault make – was positioned. The driver, a huge man, loaded me into the back alone, lifting me in his arms like a child, and when I asked if I was heavy, he laughed and told me that, when there turned out to be several claimants to this trophy car, he pulled one of them out the same way, and the rest chose to retreat. He also refused any assistance in the medical battalion of some division and instead dragged me into the operating room on his own. There were several operating tables in the large tent, which was penetrated by the sun’s rays. Several wounded were undergoing surgery at the same time, and while they were getting ready to take care of me, I could observe everything that went on in front of me – the pulled-up sleeves of bloodied gowns and the shining instruments. The nurse clumsily tried to take off the tourniquet made with a belt, which apparently was unfamiliar to her. I showed her, “Here’s how!” “Well, well, one more time!” she said. I tightened and released the tourniquet one more time. “That’s great!” Meanwhile, a large syringe was prepared, they injected half a glass of some drug into my leg around the joint, and the leg swelled and went numb because of it. The surgeon made two crosswise cuts in my leg around the entry wound, spread the edges, and, apparently to distract me, advised me to memorize, “A cut 9 by 6 centimeters.” “Now hold on, you’ll have to bear this!” They wrapped a bandage soaked in something around some kind of a rod, and they used this instrument to clean the bullet hole, sticking it right through. Probably the local anesthesia didn’t really work on the joint; my eyes popped out, sweat ran down my face and forehead, but I sat with my teeth tightly closed, grabbing at the table’s edges with my hands so that finger joints became white. Finally, dressing, a cast, and evacuation to an army hospital. I’ve had to give first aid to the wounded many times, applying bandages, tourniquets, and splints. Long before the war, when I was a 12-yearold boy, my brother stepped on a broken bottle and badly cut his foot. We were living in a village for the summer, so he had to be taken to a hospital in a horse cart. In order to stop the flow of blood, I put on a tourniquet made from a handkerchief, and even put in a piece of paper where I noted the time of dressing, as we had been taught in the civil defense classes at school. The doctor who worked at the village hospital decided to take a look at the “expert,” came out to the porch, and said, “Good job, go on!” And only just recently, on the bridgehead, a German high explosive shell burst above us, and a young soldier walking to the infantry as a replacement, who hadn’t even received a weapon, had his finger cut off by a fragment. I had to dress his mangled hand with a first aid kit found in his pocket. And now I turned out to be wounded. For how long? They did not 104

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care to make any predictions in the medical battalion, and much less in the army hospital, since the wound, or rather the entire leg from the toes to the very top, was inside a cast, they could only go by scanty notes in the medical file. But they supposed that it could take even half a year. A pity! I never learned where the army hospital was located, its number, and other details, because I couldn’t move about on my own and saw very little around me. I only know, because I had to cross the river, that the hospital was not in the bridgehead, but on the right bank, probably very close to the river. When the wounded were brought in or taken away, the vehicle would pass between trees, so we must have been deployed in a forest. Large tents with tarpaulin floors, small hallways, windows with plastic plates instead of glass in them. The tarpaulin was dark green, so it was semi-dark inside even during the day. It was immediately apparent that the fighting had ebbed in the bridgehead. There weren’t many wounded, only my bed out of ten was occupied in the officer ward (or tent); thus, I didn’t have anyone to talk to. The nurse, a young girl of about 18, was afraid to say anything superfluous after receiving an order from the doctor. When I was being placed in my bed, not seeing any “colleagues,” I said that there probably hadn’t been as much space here before. It seemed the nurse was about to confirm my guess, but the doctor, hearing our conversation, strictly pointed out that no one was supposed to know how many wounded there were, so we shouldn’t blab about it. The conversation stopped and never resumed, especially since severe pain started in my leg. Possibly, the medicine they had pumped into my leg at the medical battalion stopped working. I tried to bear it, but it was apparent from my look that something wasn’t right. They wanted to inject me with morphine, but I refused, and didn’t sleep a minute during the first night. The next day the nurse gave me some injection, and I lost consciousness for an entire day and night. After awaking from the long sleep, I heard doctors discussing whether my cast should be changed – possibly it was pressing the leg too hard. That same day, I was sent to the front hospital in L’vov, and the ride solved the issue of changing the cast on its own. The wounded were driven in a Studebaker truck, on a thin layer of straw covered with tarpaulin. So that he wouldn’t have to drive back during the night “through the Banderites,” the driver sped along byroads so fast that we were bouncing in the back. As a result, the cast cracked and split. The first thing they did in L’vov was to remove its remains and put on a new cast, after which I began to feel much better.

Hospital life The L’vov hospital was located on the specially adapted premises of some educational establishment – either a school or a technical academy. I had 105

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roommates there, and could talk, read, or even play chess. On about the fifth or the sixth day of my stay at L’vov, they brought me crutches. I was feeling almost completely well by that time (while lying down), so I plucked up courage and tried to stand up. It turned out not to be so simple. I couldn’t step on my left, wounded foot; it had to be suspended in the air. But the heavy cast was pressing on the wounded joint with all of its weight. As a result, the lights went out in my eyes, and I hit the floor hard. I had to start gradually, and in three or four days I was already walking with crutches, and, like all walking wounded, was helping those who were immobile. I had to learn to adjust the crutches for the correct height. It was important to adjust the two variable quantities correctly – the total length of the crutch and the position of hand supports – for my height and arm length. Unless that was done correctly, walking on crutches turned into an impossible burden even for a healthy person. But if the adjustment was done right, you could even run pretty fast. The ability to move about unaided permitted me to communicate not only with my roommates, but also with those from other rooms, and, since walking wounded ate in the cafeteria instead of their rooms, my circle of acquaintances quickly broadened. The conversation topics varied, but many conversations started with the circumstances of being wounded. They were followed by regrets of carelessness, and surprise at one’s good or bad fortune, and an exchange of useful tips. Here’s one case. A young lieutenant, a rifle platoon commander, received a bullet wound to his arm on September 10 (one week earlier than me). That was when heavy fighting was still raging in the bridgehead. Comrades dressed his wound, tied his hand to the body, and left him in the trench to wait until dark since it was dangerous to move about in the daylight. However, after consulting with friends, he decided to take a chance – the sector exposed to enemy fire was not that great, but in the event of a German attack he wasn’t a fighter anyway, and the risk was greater. Only two or three steps remained to safety. And then a full machine gun burst struck him with explosive bullets. Six or more holes were added to the first wound, his legs and ribs were broken, and face was hurt. He lay in the hospital, bandaged like a doll; only his eyes were gleaming from under the bandages. But his mood was cheerful and he had a healthy appetite – he kept asking for seconds. Another case involved my roommate, Vasilii Baklykov. We rode together from L’vov to an evacuation hospital in the rear, and stayed in the same room until my discharge from the hospital. I left, leaving Vasilii to finish his treatment. He was about five years older than me, drafted even before the war, and had served in the Far East while constantly requesting the superiors to be transferred to the front. In 1944 he received what he wanted, arrived in the 1st Ukrainian Front, passed through the 3rd UPROS the same as me, and left with an assignment to his regiment 106

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only to be struck by a bomb on the way. He received several fragments in his left ankle and arrived at the hospital with exactly the same long leg cast as adorned my leg. Here’s another case I recall. A major, an old soldier who had been in the army from perhaps as early as the Civil War, went to a river to stun fish when his regiment was pulled back into the rear for rest. Miscalculating the length of the cord inserted into a dynamite stick (he claimed it was a German cord with different properties than ours), he lost his right arm almost to the elbow. I’ll talk about that major later, when describing the evacuation hospital. A tanker was in the room next to ours. He suffered worse from his burns than from his light wound. He was bragging about the fact that he had already destroyed nine tanks, but he was still alive and was going to get his tenth one. Of course, there was also enough of the usual “male monastery” talk about the better half of humanity, but that is probably of no interest. Although life in a hospital probably deserves a description, all of the details are probably not very interesting. It was simple with the walking wounded – you put on your gown, grabbed the crutches (if you couldn’t do without them), and went where you needed or wanted to go. However, the bedridden wounded always had problems with washing, and eating, and satisfying other basic needs. A person who was immobile, wrapped in bandages, and confined to a cast could not even use normal personal hospital implements. There was a shortage of nurses and orderlies, they worked day and night, without rest, and even though the wounded were not supposed to work too much (except the special convalescent groups), the guys would often do many tasks, not even waiting to be asked by the hospital personnel. It seems to me as if the army and front hospitals, as well as the medical battalion, did not see it as their task to treat the wounded until they got well. As soon as their wounded reached a state that permitted them to be transported further to the rear, it was done immediately to make room for the new “replacements.” My and my new comrades’ turn to be sent off from L’vov finally arrived. The first impression of the medical train came straight from Panova’s novel, The Train. The only difference was that while Panova’s train picked the wounded up directly at the front lines, our wounded were “repaired” to transportable condition beforehand. Of course, there were many bedridden wounded, but there were no critical cases in our run. However, there were numerous other irritations. For example, since the crutches we used in L’vov were hospital property, that’s where they remained. That’s why when we had to get to the other end of the car, or when we wanted to talk to one of our comrades, we had to move about the car and the train on one foot. The wounded were lodged so that those who 107

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could walk occupied the lower bunks, and those who couldn’t were on the upper ones. In addition, it was not proper to use the upper bunks as handholds when one walked around the car, since when doing so you would disturb those lying in them, many of whom were sleeping. Only one way to move remained. By standing on the heel of your right foot, you could turn the foot toward the direction where you wished to walk. Then, by transferring your weight to your toes, you could bring the heel forward and move agonizingly slowly in the direction you wished to walk. In order to act on your plan to meet up with a comrade, you had to cross dozens of cars, and open and close half a hundred heavy doors. It took considerable time, but we had plenty of it. It was also physically taxing – but what exercise! Besides the old L’vov acquaintances, I also made new ones. My neighbor, Vasia Baklykov, spent free time (obviously, not his free time – all of our time was free) alone in the platform of the car with one of the nurses who was riding with us, a very young Ania. Her colleague and friend, older and even taller than her, tried not to give her any assignments at times like that. By that time, when the train had crossed Ukraine and was nearing the Kuban’ region, Vasilii had already found out from Ania, and I from Vasilii, that Ania came from the town of Tikhoretsk, and was the daughter of a railroad depot worker. When the medical train was being assembled at the junction, she asked to be on its crew, first as an orderly, but later functioning as a nurse. However, work like that was not for schoolgirls, especially on a train. After several runs Ania started asking to be “written off,” but in vain. She worked, as we all observed, diligently; therefore, her superiors did not want to let her go. Since he was older and more experienced in things like this (after all, he managed to be transferred from the Far East to the front), Vasilii reminded the superiors that they had no right to hold a minor without her consent, and they agreed to let her go right after the end of the run, not far from her own Tikhoretsk. Obviously, Ania gave Vasilii her address, and this story had a continuation, which will be described in due time. Somewhere halfway between Krasnodar and Kropotkin, our train stopped at a station in the middle of the steppe, and we started disembarking. The new arrivals were driven to the evacuation hospitals located in the surrounding villages. Representatives of the hospitals came to the train station to meet us, and that reminded me of how the train with evacuated Leningraders had been met in Biisk in 1942. Just as it had been back then, there were no motor vehicles, just horse carts. I didn’t notice if there was any well-defined procedure for allocating the wounded among the various hospitals. It seemed as if everything was done in haphazard fashion. No one wanted to remain at the station for long, and the carts were filled up quickly, but those with wounded legs couldn’t do it themselves and had to wait. That’s how the “natural selection” occurred and, as a result, our close108

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Figure 3.3 The hospital in Vasiurinskaia (drawn from memory by E. Moniushko).

knit trio was formed – Vasilii, me, and another colleague of ours, Lieutenant Stepan Volgin, who had also been shot-through a joint, only in his right leg. Together, we rode to Evacuation Hospital No. 5455 in the village of Vasiurinskaiae. Later we were transferred together to another hospital in Ust’-Labinskaia, and we didn’t part company until my discharge (I was the first from our group to leave the hospital). The Vasiurinskaia hospital resembled neither the army hospital, which was in tents, nor the front hospital, which had occupied a large multistoried building. At Vasiurinskaia, the wounded privates and noncommissioned officers lay in former classrooms in a single-level log house of the village school. The teachers’ lounge and utility rooms of the school had been converted to doctors’ and administrative offices. The wounded officers were placed in a house where the teachers had lived. It was a long building, consisting of separate living quarters – apartments, each with a separate entrance. An apartment started with a porch, then a small kitchen, and one or two rooms. Each and every apartment held three to five wounded. A washstand and the latrine were situated out in the street, or rather out in the steppe, because there was no street as such. The school itself was located outside the village, and there wasn’t even a fence around it. Besides the two houses mentioned above, the school grounds also contained a small house with a kitchen and a tiny room, where the cook Katia lived with her 12-year-old sister. Their parents had died, their house had been destroyed, and Katia lived and worked at the hospital. 109

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There was an awning stretched over posts near the kitchen, tables and benches for those eating, and a bell on one of the posts, which Katia used three times a day to summon the wounded for their meals. A samovar of unbelievable dimensions was also there on top of a table dug into the ground. It was always hot – there was simply no time for it cool because of its size. It must be noted that the hospital, which contained 150–200 wounded who mostly required surgical care, with wounds to their limbs, did not have a single surgeon. But then, neighboring hospitals and villages didn’t have any surgeons either – that profession was especially scarce during wartime. There was only one surgeon for the entire large district, and he visited many hospitals by turns, coming once every two weeks. The wounded quickly realized that the daily rounds of therapeutic doctors were a formality. After all, even the surgeon had a hard time determining the condition of the wound inside a cast. That’s why, since that October was warm and sunny, many left to walk in the steppe after breakfast, to the bank of the Kuban’ River, leaving notes on the locked doors of their rooms thanking the doctors for visiting. Some became acquainted with local girls and disappeared in the village even during nights. The daily routine was absolutely free. I don’t remember any objections from the hospital personnel against the self-reliance of their patients. Of course, it was wartime, and there was no excess of food even in the rich and prosperous Kuban’. That’s why when Katiusha rang the bell, almost everyone assembled. The food was fine when it came to its amount, and I don’t even have to mention the quality – our cook was very good. It was worse with entertainment. The hospital library was very meager and a mobile movie theater came rarely, even less frequently than the surgeon. Since the rooms were not equipped with electrical lighting, the nights had to be spent in conversations on various topics. Our main storyteller was Volgin, who in his civilian life was a countryside district Party committee secretary somewhere in the steppes south of the Ural Mountains. He was older than us – he was about 30, simple from the look of him, but he turned out to be a very educated person. I did think this resulted from spending a lot of time behind a school desk, but instead was the fruit of his self-education, an education produced by necessity. After all, knowledge was necessary to manage the population of an entire district, and he had the knowledge. It was interesting to listen to him, and useless to argue with him. If he did get into a debate, it was only when he had enough arguments to win. So “useless” was probably a bad word to choose – it was actually useful. There was other entertainment as well. When the new arrivals got to know each other well enough (we couldn’t do it very well on the train), they also became more open with each other. One of the young lieutenants, incidentally my colleague – also an anti-tank gunner – once said 110

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Figure 3.4 The “fashion house” at “Ust’-Labinskaia.” A practical fashion “suit” made from anything available (drawn by E. Moniushko).

that he managed to save and bring with him a trophy Parabellum [pistol] with ammunition. We decided to go shooting in a small group. The armless major – the unfortunate fisherman – also joined the group. We found a precipitous spot on the riverbank, but couldn’t find a piece of paper to use as a target. And then the major grinned and said that it wasn’t a problem – we had a pencil. We didn’t get the joke, but it turned out he wasn’t joking. He stuck a pencil vertically into a clay slope, loaded the handgun with one hand, fired eight shots with his only left hand, and five times “bit off” a piece of the pencil, starting from the top, from the distance of 15 paces. After such an example, everyone else was too embarrassed to continue. The major told us that during the many years of his service, he trained his eye and hand every morning, not to mention the target practice, and considered a paper target a luxury not permissible to an officer. Of course, we couldn’t have practiced at the hospital, where the superiors could see the 111

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gun, and we couldn’t shoot much on the riverbank – there wasn’t a lot of ammo. So we had to abandon that amusement. A holiday was approaching – the anniversary of the Great October Revolution. It became noticeably colder; in the morning the water in the wheel ruts of unpaved roads would be frozen. We stoked the kitchen ovens in our apartments, but it was hard to get the firewood. Talk of our moving out began once again. It was decided to transfer some of the wounded, those who were lodged in the teachers’ apartments, from Vasiurinskaia to another hospital, since the hospital’s personnel, who were very few in number, could not manage to heat all the premises, and they weren’t supposed to leave that up to the wounded. Only those who were in the main part of the hospital, in the classrooms themselves, were to be left in Vasiurinskaia. On one of the first days in November, but still prior to the holiday, Stepan Volgin proposed to go to the village to talk to the people. This seemed strange to me. I couldn’t imagine how you could simply enter the house of strange people not on some business, but simply to talk. But Stepan disagreed, “You have to learn to talk to people. Otherwise you’ll never know what they live for, what they think.” He turned out to be correct. In every house the three of us entered, we were greeted like their own, like relatives. They would sit us at the table and call their neighbors. Boiled potatoes, home-baked bread, glasses, and the somewhat muddy and strong beet moonshine would appear on the table. However, Volgin directed the conversation in such a way that we forgot about the drink and the food. He talked about the situation at the front, life in the nation, and about when to expect the men home from the war. That way we went through more than one house during the evening, and returned when it had become dark, barely feeling the way with our crutches. It seemed strange that aged Cossacks and bearded grandfathers, who had probably fought “the German” in the First World War, were attentively listening to young soldiers. Right after the holiday, our transfer to Ust’-Labinskaia took place. Now, that village is a real town, and even then it was a large district center; therefore, it differed from Vasiurinskaia more than Solton had differed from Neninka. Its central part was built up with brick two- and three-story buildings, and streets were paved in stone. There was electrical lighting, plumbing in the houses, and the House of Culture had an auditorium seating 300 people. Although the local power plant was experiencing fuel shortages due to the wartime inconveniences, and the power often went out, those still were exceptions rather than the rule. One of the village schools, situated in the very center of the village, on a square next to the House of Culture (which everyone simply called “the club”) was allocated for the hospital, as well as the village church. More than once, the latter provided food for the jokes of our witty fellows. 112

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They placed us in classrooms, not like before, but this time 20 men to a room. Trying to establish the same kind of order among the new arrivals as they had at that hospital, they took away our uniforms, expecting that the wounded would not be able to leave the hospital on their own. Vain hope! Our folk craftsman designed and produced a very comfortable and practical cloak made from a blanket. A short bent stick placed on our shoulders gave us a certain Chapaev-like look [Chapaev was a Civil War hero who wore distinctive dress]. In such a uniform formed from dark gray blankets with blue, green, and red stripes, the wounded walked the streets, the market, and went to the movies and concerts that were often given at the club. Dressed that way, they walked their ladies home, visited with them, and no one was shocked by that. The attempts to establish a hospital-like order were decisively thwarted. From the very beginning, we unconditionally rejected the term “sick.” In response to a doctor or a nurse using such a term, we replied decisively, “We are not sick! We are wounded!” It was harder to defeat the doctors’ morning rounds. In Vasiurinskaia everyone simply went outside. It was more complicated here, since, out of the two-dozen inhabitants of the room, there were always those who loved to sleep late after their night escapades, and sticking a note on the door saying that everyone had left would have been less than truthful. As for the evening rounds, which were led by the hospital chief, we found a way to fight that as well. We executed a complicated plan to do so. First, we began complaining that it was too cold in the rooms and requested more blankets. The first blanket served as cloaks, and the second as camouflage. Those who were leaving placed an order with those who remained, and as soon as it grew dark, we played a small trick with the electricity, which the superiors took to be the usual power outage. In the dim light of kerosene lamps, you could only see the vague shape in each bed, with silhouettes of leg casts and the so-called “airplanes” on wounded arms (an “airplane” was a complicated cast with a support from the waist to the elbow, ensuring the correct position of a wounded arm – it somewhat resembled the supports and braces of the wings of a Po-2 aircraft). Of course, those were our knapsacks under the blankets, rolled up newspaper files from the Lenin Room, rolls of underwear, etc. The effect was so authentic that, once, my neighbor, on whose request I had made a doll, after returning in the middle of the night, asked me to give him shelter until morning, since they supposedly had put a new arrival in his bed. Incidentally, to a certain degree, the complaints about the cold were truthful. Local schoolchildren also often came to the hospital. Since they were not well off, they only brought with them an entire sack of garlic as a gift. It stood in the middle of the room and was gradually emptied. Naturally, windows had to be kept open. 113

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A significant relief for me during this period was finally parting with my cast. Knowing from the more experienced comrades, who were at the hospital for the second or even the third time, that the cast on wounds like mine was taken off after a month and a half, after the November holidays, I began to insist on that procedure. I had serious reasons to do so: first of all, the cast was an extra burden; second, the secretions from the wound that hadn’t closed yet permeated the cast and produced a certain unpleasant “aroma;” and third, “residents” took shelter under the cast and they made my leg itch where it couldn’t be scratched. Hearing my requests, the medics made the usual excuses, saying, “Wait until the surgeon comes, and then . . .” My patience finally ran out, I got large scissors from a cabinet, similar to those sappers used to cut barbed wire, and I got down to business. The confused woman doctor ran in circles around me, waved her hands, and lamenting, “Oh my, what are you doing! How can you do that?” But it was too late. The cast was cut to its entire length. To my surprise and regret, the leg turned out to be “alien.” It had grown half as thick, and the knee could bend barely 30 degrees. So I couldn’t abandon the crutches immediately, and only by the beginning of December was I able to begin using a walking stick. One of the local residents was mass-producing walking sticks, and being overstocked was no problem for him. The stick was planed from some board, on one end of which a cross piece was stuck like a hammer to its handle – that contraption served me until my arrival at the 9th Leningrad Regiment. I had to gradually train and exercise my leg so as to reach a normal condition faster. Of course, the wound hadn’t closed yet, and the doctor approved of that, because if a wound closed too early, it would hinder the healing on the inside. I had to use a variety of dressings, but finally the wound closed in March 1945. At that time, I had to train not only the leg but also my memory. After one concert at the club, when in the evening our hospital vocalists wanted to sing one song heard for the first time at the concert, a problem came up – no one remembered the lyrics. We started to reconstruct the text together, and it turned out that I was able to write down more than everyone else. From that day on, I was entrusted with the task of writing down the lyrics of new songs. I was able to memorize two or three songs in one concert, and to write them down after returning to the hospital. But I wasn’t able to see or hear anything else at that concert. In December, when the light frosts began, my comrades Volgin and Baklykov also finally parted with their casts. However, Vasilii’s case turned out to be complicated. His leg was in serious pain, and it soon turned out that a fragment had not been removed completely, or rather, only one of the two had been removed, and the second one remained unnoticed, and now it came up to the surface on its own, so you could even 114

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feel it under the skin. After its removal, the wound began to fester, and the question of his discharge had to be postponed.

Mission to Tikhorestk However, I was to leave Ust’-Labinskaia in the middle of December. I received a uniform – of course, it was for the lower ranks, but it was new and it fit me. However, they couldn’t give me identification papers at the hospital – the papers that I had with me were not enough for that. They only gave me a certificate that I had been wounded, in which a 30-day leave was specified, as well as the food and uniform ration cards. And I still had the same officer pay book from the 1st TAU. They also gave me dry rations for the road – bread, salo, canned meat, and some sugar. Before I left, I managed to have my picture taken with Vasia and Stepan. And then Vasilii gave me an important task that puzzled me. In order to explain why I was puzzled, we have to return to the medical train and our car’s nurse, Ania Zhironkina. Both in Vasiurinskaia and Ust’Labinskaia, Vasilii received letters from Ania regularly, and he replied to her just as regularly. Despite the fact that we were quite close, he did not share the letters’ content with us, but instead only passed on her greetings and her wishes for our good health. However, now Vasilii quickly explained the situation – he and Ania had already agreed to get married once he got well. But as far as he could tell from Ania’s letters, her parents did not take the idea seriously, and did not approve of it. That’s why I had the task to visit Tikhoretsk. I was to determine the situation, try to convince the parents in favor of the bride and groom, and, if that didn’t work, work out with Ania the plan of further actions. For the sake of complete clarity, Vasilii concluded, “When I ride by them, I’ll steal her!” No one in our room slept during the last night at the hospital. A large group was being discharged; we talked, and sang to a guitar, which our nurse Valia played very well. She was from Rostov, and probably that’s why the song about the liberation of Rostov came out especially good, “We lived in this city, loved in this city . . .” The hospital was finally behind me. The certificate from the Military–Medical Museum places the date of my departure from the 5456th Evacuation Hospital at December 19. It is possible that, in reality, I left two or three days later; otherwise it is difficult for me to account for the subsequent days. But that is not important for this story. My first task was to get to Tikhoretsk, where I was to carry out my diplomatic assignment. My boarding of the train in Ust’-Labinskaia and my transfer in Krasnodar reminded me greatly of the railroad travel scenes during the Civil War, which was vividly familiar to me from books. There was utterly no concept of tickets, at least for those in military uniform, not to mention those leaving a hospital. The passenger train was 115

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Figure 3.5 A group photo at Evacuation Hospital no. 5456 in Labinskaia district [krai] on November 18, 1944. From left to right: S.E. Volgin, V.D. Baklykov, and E.D. Moniushko (photograph from E. Moniushko’s private collection).

stuffed like a streetcar during the rush hour. Not only the second tier bunks, but also the third tier for the baggage contained two or three people. People were packed tightly in the passages. But still I rode on. I found the Zhironkin house in Tikhoretsk, a small, and as it seemed, mostly one-storied town, somewhere near the soot-covered building of the locomotive depot. I knocked and opened the door. Ania immediately hung herself around me, hugged me, and kissed me. Her parents appeared next, “Ah,” they said, “So you’re the one playing with this girl’s head, and leading her down the wrong path?” “No, no! That’s not him!” Ania shouted. General embarrassment ensued. Then we sat at the table for a long time, drinking a samovar of tea with some cookies. I told them of the hospital life and steered the conversation toward Vasilii, all the while trying to understand the parents’ poor opinion of him. It was obvious what the younger brother and sister, whom Ania had already indoctrinated, thought of him. Later, they all saw me off well, even using their railroad occupation and connections to help me get into a car on the Rostov train. Ultimately, it seemed that my visit was successful, as I wrote in a letter to Vasilii from Rostov, where I had to visit a medical center to change the 116

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dressing (subsequently I had to repeat the procedure many times, and in all station medical centers they helped me quickly and willingly). Further events developed according to our plan. After some time, Vasilii was discharged from the hospital and received a six-month leave, dropped by Tikhoretsk, and took Ania away with him to his native Siberian village. The war came to an end during his leave, and he remained working at the local school as a teacher, and later, the principal. Ania wrote that she was very worried when Vasia sped through the steppe on a motorcycle with their son. He harvested such vast amounts of wheat in the school garden for several years in a row that he was decorated as a Hero of Socialist Labor. We corresponded for a while, but then our correspondence was unfortunately interrupted. I think he still lives in the same place in Siberia.

Home and a new assignment And so, I rode from Tikhoretsk to Rostov. There I was to transfer to a Moscow train. I was guessing as to where I would go after my discharge. I had no information on where my parents and my brother Tolia were located. During the difficult war years, letters were delivered faster than in the 1990s, but they still spent a long time in transit. But it is clear from what I wrote that my address kept constantly changing – after the 1st TAU, there was the 3rd UPROS, the 1645th IPTAP, the army hospital in the woods, the front hospital in L’vov, and the evacuation hospitals in Vasiurinskaia and Ust’-Labinskaia. Even if I managed to write a letter after my arrival in a new place, the reply would find me gone. And often it was impossible to write immediately. There was no time for letters after the arrival to the regiment on the bridgehead. Other reasons also “overlay” those circumstances. Tolia had already left the academy, and our parents moved from Neninka to Biisk, where father started to work according to his profession as a production engineer at one of the factories. I didn’t know the new addresses, so our communications were broken. We managed to re-establish them only after the Victory. The soldiers’ song from the war maintains: Even if the rain is falling, filling our trenches, And the entire planet has no dry spot, When the mail arrives, The soldier is warmed by the distant greetings. For obvious reasons, I wasn’t warmed too much by mail after my “graduation” from the war. There were rare letters from Vasia Baklykov and Ania, due to the fact that he gave me the address of his relatives when we were parting. Also, a nurse from the Vasiurinskaia hospital replied to my letter from the new unit. But still, the mail during the war years should be 117

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remembered and described in greater detail, forgotten by many, and remain completely unknown to others. All letters addressed to military units were shipped free. Similarly, letters whose return address was to a military unit were stamped with the sign “Military Free,” instead of the actual postage. This was stamped at the headquarters, where all correspondence to be sent out was assembled. All letters, both military and regular, went through military censorship, where black ink was used to blot out all information that was supposed to be kept secret. But letters were still delivered to the addressee. I’ve seen letters where there was nothing remaining except “Hello” and “Goodbye” (although I’ve never heard of any action taken against their authors). It was noticeable that checking letters wasn’t a mere formality, and it took a lot of time. Nevertheless, the letters were not in transit for long periods of time, especially when compared to the modern pace. I’ve saved letters from my brother, sent by him from Luga, in the Leningrad region, to Biisk, in the distant Altai. Judging by the dates, which were written in his hand, and the postmarks, one of them was mailed on January 12 and reached Biisk on the nineteenth of the same month, and the second was in transit from January 28 to February 11. If only the modern mail had such speed! Now a letter from Vyborg to Moscow crawls for a month and a half. Of course, the practice of replacing the envelopes with “triangles,” which were not sealed, but simply folded, expedited the censors’ work and, consequently, the ultimate delivery. Postcards without a picture were widely used, but their surface was so covered with writing that it was difficult to read the address. The so-called “secrets” were also used – sheets of paper 16 ⫻ 23 centimeters, which were blank on one side and had an envelope printed on the other side – with a place for the address, a postage stamp, and a small picture, usually of something military. After folding a 1 centimeter edge, and then folding the entire sheet in two, with the text on the inside, the edge was slightly glued, and you ended up with a letter better protected from prying eyes than a simple postcard, and possessing the size of a regular envelope. Nevertheless, sometimes we were forced to use regular envelopes – in cases when surrogates were used due to the shortage of writing paper. While at the 3rd UPROS, I had to write a letter home on small triangular pieces of rice paper, which we received as books in addition to the tobacco ration, to make hand-rolled cigarettes. I’ve also seen letters written on pieces of birch bark. Of course, such correspondence, like all official letters, had to be sealed in at least a self-made envelope, so they wouldn’t fall apart in transit. The problem of the glue shortage was solved rather simply. In the post offices, and on the tables of clerks, and the secretaries of various managers, you could often see improvised office supplies – boiled potatoes. Despite all of this humdrum, the wartime difficulties, and 118

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our temporary poverty, a firm and lasting impression remained – that the postal service and its workers in the rear and at the front did everything possible so that people could communicate with one another, so the links between people wouldn’t break, but would grow stronger. The postal service existed and worked not for profit, but for the life on Earth. The words from the same song are not accidental: And the first toast we drink Is to the health of the postal service. After this digression, let’s return to my trip. I had no letters and no information, but I hoped that my parents had already returned to Leningrad, to the Griboedov Canal. After all, almost one year had passed since the day Leningrad had been completely relieved from the siege. Therefore, I decided to fill out my leave and transit papers to Leningrad. I waited for the Moscow train in Rostov thinking about seeing my family soon and about how we would celebrate the New Year of 1945. I barely managed to get myself into the overcrowded train and rode for an entire day in a stuffy and, at the same time, cold car, while standing in a crowd. Only somewhere in the Khar’kov region did more space become available. Almost all of the war profiteers left the train, but I still didn’t manage to ride it all the way to Moscow. During those times, the trains were scheduled to stop at large stations for 30–40 minutes. Tables would already be set by the time the train arrived, so that the passengers would be able to “fill up.” But our train was late, as so often happened, and the stop was shortened, but without warning us about it. When the cars started moving past the station’s windows, the entire crowd threw down their spoons and rushed to the exit. Since I was still “three-legged,” the train left without me. The most unfortunate thing of all was that my greatcoat and knapsack with my dry rations – bread and salo – remained on the train. It was very bad in December, without a greatcoat, even in the Ukraine. At my request, the station chief immediately sent a telegram, and during the next stop my greatcoat and knapsack were taken off the train and stored until my arrival. I was put on the next fast train going in the same direction, in a passenger car with all conveniences. I picked up my things after several hours, and had time to return to my compartment. That’s when I found out that my dry ration had been shared fairly – they had left exactly one half of both bread and salo. Oh well, you’re welcome, as they say. There couldn’t be any grievances – first, I didn’t know whose work that had been, and second, it was not the time to deal with such minute details. It would have been worse if they had left me nothing. That time, I didn’t see much of Moscow, and don’t remember it at all. All of my concerns were about departing for Leningrad. The trains (at 119

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least passenger trains) were not yet taking the direct route through Bologoe. Instead, I had to ride the Savelovskaia line, through Pestovo, Krasnyi Kholm, and Mga. The train took almost two days to drag along a roundabout way and almost all of the passengers who were riding all the way to Leningrad had time to get to know each other well, engage in friendly conversations, and share their food supplies. An unusual celebratory atmosphere of elation could be felt – we were going to Leningrad! Despite everything, Leningrad was alive, it withstood the blockade, and we were riding there not in a heated freight car or over the Ladoga ice, but in a passenger train going according to a schedule, with tickets. This was underscored, in particular, by the attentive and caring attitude of the conductors, by the warmth and cleanliness inside the cars, and by the somehow special railroad tea – strong, sweet, in glasses with glass holders. Such a contrast with the southern trains! Finally, we arrived at Mga [a rail junction and city 50 kilometers southeast of Leningrad]. The train stopped. It was early morning with no signs of sunrise as yet – the end of December near Leningrad was a complete contrast to the white nights. Short days, the sun rises late, and darkness comes early. We couldn’t see anything outside the windows. However, patrols were already going through the cars, checking our identity papers. It turned out you had to have a special permit to enter Leningrad, which I didn’t have and, on top of that, I didn’t have my ID either. The patrol took my leave papers and told me to get off the train and talk with the commandant. “Where is he?” “At the station.” I put on my greatcoat, grabbed my knapsack (from that point I never parted with my things, “omnia mea mecum porto”), and left the train. After getting used to the dark, I tried to see the station. No buildings were around; only ruins barely covered with snow. The big name “station” referred to a four-axle freight car without wheels. Instead of the usual sliding doors, a small door was inserted into the boarded up doorway, apparently it survived the fire in one of the village’s former houses. Inside, the car was divided up into cubicles, and the commandant was in one of them. I don’t remember his rank, but he was no higher than a captain. I told him of my problem. He retorted that he couldn’t do anything until the patrol returned with my papers. I had to wait. I went out to the “platform.” Some time later, the train left for Leningrad, and only then the patrol returned with the report. When I came to the commandant for the second time, he was writing something in the dull light of the kerosene lamp, without even raising his head. My leave papers were on the corner of his desk among other papers. I stood there for a minute. Seeing that the commandant wasn’t paying any attention to me, I took my papers and moved toward the exit banging with my walking stick as I walked. The issue was settled. 120

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Now I had to get to Leningrad from Mga. For some reason, I didn’t think at that stage that a dispute might occur in Leningrad for the same reason. It didn’t make much sense to wait an entire day for the next train – it would be the same patrol and the same commandant again, possibly with the same result. Checking the scenery after the sunrise, I went out to the station’s tracks. All around, as far as the eye could see, the ground was covered with shell craters, overlapping one another – the traces of the “God of War” from 1943. They were sprinkled with snow, but the view was impressive. I couldn’t see any trains on the tracks; the traffic wasn’t very heavy there. But then a military train soon arrived. It was only a short stop. However, just before it departed, I approached one of its cars and asked them to give me a ride to Leningrad. The soldiers grabbed me and pulled me inside the wide-open door of the heated freight car. There was a redhot cast iron stove in there, the usual soldierly comfort. Asking nothing of me – my walking stick and limp spoke for themselves – they offered me bread and some other things. But I wasn’t hungry; I was worried by the approaching encounter with Leningrad. I didn’t ask to and from where they were going. We were not supposed to talk about that. Together with the other soldiers, I was watching the fields covered with shell craters, ruined, burned villages, black chimneys, groves from which only tree stumps remained, some tiny, barely visible under the snow, and others tall, as high as half a tree, not cut down by a saw, but broken by explosions, sliced by shell fragments. No, the Germans couldn’t hold here. I left the hospitable train at a marshaling yard near the Moscow Train Station. I had to walk through the streets; it was a good thing my knapsack was empty and was not a burden. Several times on the way, I asked passers-by for directions, which I knew no worse than them, and with pleasure listened to their well-wishing answers with advice and recommendations regarding how to get there better. There weren’t many people in the streets, but I could see by their faces that they were mostly not visitors or Leningraders returned from evacuation, but simply soldiers in the position that they had successfully defended. The signs of battle were all around, holes in the walls, empty windows, not only without the glass, but often without frames, streetcars with windows boarded up, and in some places the protective shields had not yet been removed from the storefronts. Very often the sign of a heavy bomb, like a broken tooth, would interrupt an unbroken row of houses along a street. But other signs were also visible – reconstruction had begun, hopeless ruins were dismantled, holes were filled in, walls plastered. I came to No. 146 on the southern bank of the Griboedov Canal when nightfall was approaching. The metal gate at the entrance to the arch 121

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leading to the yard was locked as always. I stepped over the high threshold of the wicket gate on the right side of the main gate, walked along the right wall, and automatically stepped to the left in the middle of the tunnel. There, near the right wall, a splinter of a flagstone had lain from long ago, which had been used as a step to get to the light switch installed high above (to keep boys from getting to it). The next day, in daylight, I found out that the stone had disappeared, even though the habit to sidestep it remained. The habit turned out to be so ingrained that, even after the war, when visiting the city and walking that path, I kept making that step to the left under the arch of the gate. Apartment 25 did not open to my ringing and knocking. I found out in the neighboring apartment that none of my family had returned. I knew that we had turned the keys over to the housing management office when departing for evacuation. But I didn’t start searching for them since it was night already, and instead accepted the kind offer from the neighbors. After spending the night, I went to the Leningrad Commandant’s Office, which was located on the corner of Sadovaia Street and Rakov Street. Besides being a formality, it was necessary to receive my food ration. Before visiting a food distribution point, you had to be registered at the Commandant’s Office. However, my leave papers, with no identification papers, which replaced the passport for an officer, did not work. The duty officer refused to register me and advised me to file a report to the garrison commandant explaining the reasons for the lack of identification papers. I did that immediately. The report was accepted, and I was told to wait for a response. In about two hours, I was shown the commandant’s decision. He wrote on the report in red pencil, “24 hours to depart for wherever he came from.” The signature was not legible. It was the last day of 1944, December 31. This way the commandant allowed me to remain in Leningrad “until the next year.” I decided not to waste time searching for the housing management workers to get the keys, since, first of all, you wouldn’t be able to find anyone during the New Year, and second, you would have to search for them again the next day in order to return the keys. I decided to forgo the visit to our apartment, especially since the neighbors offered to let me celebrate the New Year with them. Exhaustion, worry, and not being accustomed to wine had their effect on me – on January 1 I came to only at midday, and, in the evening, I was already on the Leningrad-Moscow train. A little under two days, and I was once again in Moscow. “Depart for wherever he came from” – what sense did that make? Go to the hospital, where they couldn’t give me the ID since they didn’t have my personal file? And where was my personal file? The single one that had been in my possession had gone up in smoke in August 1944 at the Sandomierz bridgehead. The second – if it existed at all – could only be in 122

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the Main Personnel Administration of Artillery (GUKART), in Moscow. That’s where I had to go. I found out GUKART’s address – on Kitaiskii Drive – from the Moscow Commandant’s Office. However, an unforeseen difficulty arose – the guard at the entrance demanded a pass. I found out that a one-time pass could be received at the Bureau of Passes, on Granovskii Street (for those who don’t know Moscow, 30–40 minutes of fast-paced walk away). Telling this story now, I remembered Colonel Diud’bin from the 1st TAU. Did he tell us during the military administration classes about the procedure of getting passes, about the pass system, requests? It is possible that he informed us about that, but it entered one ear and flew out the other, or simply “missed” us completely. But the fact remained – I did not know that, before arriving at the Bureau of Passes, you had to have a request sent there. And how would a 19-year-old junior lieutenant know that? However, it didn’t come to the request in the GUKART’s Bureau of Passes – instead they immediately demanded . . . my ID. All attempts to explain that the very lack of that document had brought me to them were unsuccessful: “Go to the Kitaiskii Drive, they’ll deal with this there.” I traveled through the streets of Moscow for two days, back and forth, still hoping that another shift at the GUKART entrance or at the Bureau would be more lenient. It must be said that the frost back then in January was about ⫺20 °C, and only the Metro saved me. I slept in the night rest area of the Leningrad Train Station. If you look at the station from the direction of the KOMSOMOL Square, you can see a yellow building to the left, which, for some time, had contained a post office for international mail. During the war years, three-tiered bunks had been made from thick boards in the large hall of that building, where privates, NCOs, officers waiting for their trains, or, in Moscow, those on official or personal business and having no place to stay, could sleep. Nearby, at the train station, you could also receive dry rations or have a hot meal with your ration card. On the third day of such a life, after receiving yet another rejection at the GUKART guard post, I blew up, I called on the internal telephone, not even knowing to whom, and told them everything I thought about this, not sparing any expressions. Probably, that was the only time in my entire life when I didn’t follow Senior Lieutenant Vinogradov’s example and didn’t replace the common Russian expression with his favorite “Damn!” I remember well how the indignant voice of my unknown interlocutor said, “Here, listen to how they speak to us,” and someone else picked up the phone. I hadn’t even managed to finish my speech, when two men in uniforms ran down the stairs and politely, but firmly, told me to follow them. With this “honor guard,” the guard did not ask for a pass, and I decided that since I had gotten in, I wouldn’t leave without resolving my problem. I don’t know what position the boss to whom I was brought to 123

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occupied, as far as I remember, he had two or three stars on his shoulder boards [a lieutenant colonel or colonel – trans.], which seemed like a lot to me – even our regiment was only commanded by a major. After expressing his displeasure at our phone conversation, the colonel still heard me out, let his “adjutants” go, and ordered me to wait in the reception area. Several officers sat there in comfortable chairs, waiting until called. All of them had two stripes [major to colonel – trans.], only I was a junior lieutenant. The waiting officers were called into the office from time to time. I heard a voice, “Colonel Kharitonov! Come in!” Only then did I recognize the former 1st TAU chief among those sitting there. I was still waiting to be called, when he came out of the office, barely moving his feet, supporting himself with his cane. I approached him, and we had the conversation that I mentioned earlier. Soon, they called me. The colonel who was talking to me had a file with papers on his desk. I replied to his questions as if during an exam, “Which regiment did you serve in? Who was its commander? Where was it in action? Which academy did you graduate from? Where and how did you receive your assignment to the regiment?” There were other questions, and after every response from me, my interrogator rustled through the papers and checked the correctness of my answers. I was very surprised that my file had the information about the time I served in the 1645th IPTAP. I thought that, since I didn’t even have time to give them my papers upon arrival in the regiment, it could have gone unnoticed. But no! To my good fortune, the military bureaucracy worked accurately. Satisfied with my answers, the colonel said that it was all clear to him, that according to regulations, the GUKART did not issue identity papers; that had to be done in the unit where officers served. That’s why I was supposed to, in accordance with the assignment given to me, go to the 27th Separate Officer Reserve Training Battalion (OUDROS), where I would receive my identity papers, and then be sent to the front. After giving me the assignment, he immediately tore up my leave papers, saying that, in order to expedite the process, I had to stock up on photographs myself. Right there, near Kitaiskii Drive, on one of the corners of Nogin Square, I stopped by a photographer. He put the still-wet prints on my head and recommended me not to take off the hat until they dried. With that “compress” I returned to the already familiar Savelovskii Train Station, and rode the commuter train to the Iksha Station, where the 27th OUDROS was quartered. The building where the reserve officers lived stands even now. When the commuter train from Moscow approaches Iksha, you can see a twostoried plastered gray and yellow building several hundred meters before the station, on a hill on the left, beyond the highway, parallel to the rail124

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road track. I lived there for 10–12 days, while my papers were being transferred from the GUKART, and while my identity papers were filled out and my assignment to the front was drawn up. Later, the State Committee on Radio Electronics, and then the Ministry of Radio Industry, to whom NII-5 (the Moscow Scientific Research Institute of Instrument Automatization) was subordinated, would occupy the building on Kitaiskii Drive. After working in that institute for 30 years, I’ve visited Kitaiskii Drive many times, and every single time, I recall January 1945. Life in the 27th OUDROS, on the one hand, had much in common with the already familiar 3rd UPROS; the expectation of “buyers,” waiting for assignments and the same desire by the majority of its “temporary residents” to leave for combat units as soon as possible (I’m not talking of exceptions – no family is without a freak). On the other hand, the 27th Battalion was unlike the 3rd Reserve Regiment in that the living conditions were different – there were rooms with heating and electric lighting, clean beds, and, of course, a complete absence of danger from Banderites. Of course, transient officers, regardless of their rank, had to take care of themselves – for example, the food was received from a storehouse and pulled to the cafeteria in sleds through all of Iksha. Each and every day, ten officers were busy with various housekeeping duties. It was noticeable that the permanent personnel of that battalion – the commanders and staff officers – grew used to that service and were not in any hurry to abandon it. On the contrary, they toadied in all possible ways. There were attempts to conduct classes on our military specialties. As far as I remember, the battalion even had two training USV guns Model 1939, but during the exercises it was determined that the students knew the subject better than the teachers. Besides, the frost did not facilitate the productiveness of practical training with the guns, and everyone left to “study theory” inside. During those classes, one captain and I began playing chess, but the battalion commander conducting the class confiscated the board and the pieces. We had to make a chess game [board and figures] of our own, very skillfully camouflaged as a book about American secret service activities against Germany. We also had some free time. Walking outside, I saw for the first time the locks of the Moscow–Volga Canal. They were empty of water, like deep gorges, their bottom covered with snow that had fallen that winter. It was hard to imagine any ships passing that way. Not much remained in my memory of my short stay in the 27th OUDROS. Very soon I received my personal identity papers, and with them – my new assignment. Fires burn again, The far horizon is filled with lights, Our wartime youth – The 1st Ukrainian Front. 125

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(Let the author of these lines forgive me – it was the “North-Western Front” in the original.) Of course, I can’t describe everything; some things, some episodes, are forgotten due to their remoteness in time, some seem unworthy of attention, but some things might suddenly come back when it seems that everything has already been written about some period; and you would have to rewrite a lot in order to fill in what has just come up, for which there is neither time nor patience. For example, here’s the first [Moscow victory] salute that I had ever seen. At first, it seemed as if in a dream – warming myself in the Metro, I was sleeping in the train when I suddenly saw a flood of many-colored lights outside the window. It turned out the train was back above ground near the Kiev Train Station right at the moment of the next salvo. Here, I suddenly saw fragments of a documentary “Leningrad Fighting” in the movie theater. A multi-storied building on the Fontanka embankment collapses, turning into a pile of bricks, and I know for sure that I see that very moment for the second time. In October of 1941 it happened before my very eyes, and the photographer was probably somewhere nearby, capturing in his object lens what remained inside my head. I cannot write about everything. But perhaps these notes will help someone understand certain details and the general environment of those years, and, if I was successful, the whole optimistic, tragic, and heroic spirit of that time, when most people knew and believed: Our cause is just. Victory will be ours!

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4 IN SILESIA AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA DURING 1945

A platoon commander is a very minor figure in war. It is hard to find any information in his stories or memoirs that would provide us with an understanding of the general shape of strategic operations or even tactical actions of a unit or a formation. After all, a platoon commander did not always have topographical maps and, as a result, often had to use trophy [captured] maps or a quick sketch map on a scrap of paper. With rare exceptions, you will not find intimate accounts of personal meetings with any famous generals in a platoon commander’s memoir. After all, a platoon commander frequently did not even know his regimental commander. He may have never met him in the short intervals between being wounded; and, after junior officers were wounded, they were usually assigned to other units. However, the platoon commander’s stories and memoirs do contain truthful and unique details about military life and personal impressions of everything the commander has seen and experienced. They contain soldierly “truth from the trenches,” without which you cannot develop a complete and correct understanding of the nature of the war, even if you study the memoirs of generals, marshals, and ministers from cover to cover. These memoirs are essential if you want to avoid a one-sided impression of the war. If he chooses to read on, these recollections offer the reader impressions of war written 40 or more years after the events actually occurred. These impressions from seemingly forgotten days either remained lodged vividly in my memory or resulted from subsequent meetings with old comrades, a glance at an old map shown to me by someone else, or the appearance of some item that reminded me of my youth in the military. While these notes do not reflect any strict chronological sequence, trophy maps that served me back in 1945 and other topographical maps which I obtained after the war, some as recently as 1987 and 1988, tie some of the episodes I describe to precise locales.

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IN SILESIA AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA DURING 1945

“Seek and ye shall find!” “Go there, I don’t know where . . .” [This formulaic expression, which is found in many Russian fairy tales, describes an impossible task, such as, “Go there, I don’t know where,” and “Bring that, I don’t know what”]. That is how the assignment received in Moscow, at the Artillery Personnel Directorate, seemed to me. According to my assignment, I was supposed to be assigned to the commander of a unit designated by a certain number. However, all I knew at the time was that I had to look for the unit in the 1st Ukrainian Front. All of the further instructions I received, all the way down to regimental level, remained a puzzle to me. Nevertheless, as strange as it was, in the end you would find yourself where you needed to be. An invisible system seemed to exist, which led you inexorably in the required direction, but, at the same time, provided resistance during accidental deviations. That is why, despite the lack of proper tickets, you would suddenly find yourself on the correct train (even though in Kiev, for example, I had to make my way through the ruins of a pedestrian bridge and jump on the roof of a railroad car from the height of a second floor). At a given checkpoint, they would load you on a Studebaker going in the same direction, and it would drop you off at the required intersection. And if you found yourself on a road going to an incorrect destination, they would check your papers at the very first roadblock, and say politely, but firmly, “Comrade Junior Lieutenant, you are going in the wrong direction.” After you asked the question, “Where?” they would only vaguely shrug their shoulders. Willy-nilly, in this manner you made your way forward where movement was permitted, and, as if in a fairy tale, you ultimately found “That, I don’t know what.” It is still quite nice to recall the benevolent, if sometimes exacting, treatment you received. They would check all of your papers thoroughly, they would find a railroad car for you, they would share their bread and canned meat with you, and, if evening was approaching, they would offer to let you spend the night, all the while reminding you that it wasn’t wise to move about during the night-time. Perhaps my still noticeable limp and a walking stick accounted for this treatment, although, I noticed that all of “ours” received similar treatment. If there were exceptions, their only purpose was to highlight the general rule. I rode the train from Moscow only as far as the city of L’vov. From that point on, trucks and cars were all going in the same direction. Then there was a short trip in the car of a freight train somewhere between the towns of Peremyshl’ and Iaroslav. I can remember this because the commander of the railroad station allocated an empty “Pullman” car for the 50 of us who had been discharged from hospitals and were trying to catch up with the advancing front. After closing the doors and windows symbolically to keep the warmth inside the cars, we spent the entire night shaking in the

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dark, both from the cold and from the car’s rough ride over the haphazardly rebuilt railroad track. We warmed ourselves by listening to brilliant performances by one of our comrades in misfortune, who read poems by Pushkin and Maiakovsky, Lermontov and Blok, and Briusov and Nekrasov, and excerpts from plays and novels all intermixed with jokes from Odessa. The invisible fellow traveler, who remained unknown to us, possessed an inexhaustible memory and a keen talent for performing. I think I am not the only soldier who remembered him with good feelings and friendly envy. It felt uncomfortable to be unarmed, especially since we were riding through territory that had only recently been liberated from the Germans; liberated, but not yet cleared. That was why everyone was seeking to ride with someone, even if only part of the way; thus we formed into groups. Three of us rode together through Krakow, through which the frontline had just rolled past. We were looking for the Katowice highway. We encountered a patrol in the market square at Krakow, which had detained a person who was in civilian dress, if you could call it that given the unimaginable mix of various rags he had wrapped himself in. The soldiers’ attempts to communicate with him in Russian or in some semblance of Polish and German did not produce any positive results. Gesticulating wildly, the detainee indicated that he did not understand. They asked us to help. The man turned out to be an Italian. He had been in a German camp, but was now seeking to make his way to Italy. We took him to the commandant’s office. There, they told us (except the Italian, obviously) to postpone our departure until tomorrow due to the approaching darkness. They then provided us with the address of a local resident with whom we could spend the night. The enterprising Pole who put us up for the night had offered his services to the commandant, both to provide quarters for a night’s rest and to perform repairs on vehicles, but it looked as if his repair shop hadn’t been idle under the Germans either. The Pole greeted the three Russian officers with ostentatious pleasure, asked his neighbors to join us for supper, and, the next morning, presented each of us with a pencil and a small notebook, “To keep account of the Germans you killed,” he said. After saying farewell to my fellow travelers somewhere near the town of Gogolin, I spent the next night in a dugout with soldiers of some second line unit. There was an alarm during the night. Infiltrating westward, the “Fritzes” had appeared nearby. I was told not to go outside alone. I didn’t know the password, and, of course, no one could recognize my face. After being left alone, I simply stoked the stove so that the guys could warm themselves when they returned. I did find a hand grenade, which someone had left behind, and put it in my pocket for defense. I finally arrived in my new regiment armed with such a “sidearm.” The old proverb, “There wasn’t any fortune, but a misfortune helped,” 129


does not lie. I could not walk very fast yet because the wound in my leg had not fully closed up as yet and because I still suffered from considerable physical exhaustion. That was why I was still about 300 meters away from the corps headquarters when the Germans began an artillery bombardment of the village where the corps’s headquarters was located. I waited it out with a senior lieutenant, who happened to be nearby, until the explosions from the 155 mm shells abated. After discussing what had occurred, we decided the bombardment was only untargeted harassing fire. If the Germans had known about the existence of the headquarters, the shelling would have been far more powerful and would have lasted far longer. At the corps headquarters [The 21st Army 117th Rifle Corps], I received directions to my new division, and was back on the road in a flash. Although I did not spend much time in the 72nd Rifle Division’s headquarters, the attention they paid to the “new guy” left a nice impression on me. While deciding the matter of my next assignment, either to the division’s anti-tank battalion (considering my pre-hospital specialization), or to the 9th Artillery Regiment, they took into account the fact that I was from Leningrad. “Since you are a Leningrader,” they said, “Go to the 9th Regiment. After all, its honorary designation is ‘Leningrad’!” And so I was assigned to the 9th Leningrad Artillery Regiment. Even then, as I searched for the required towns and headquarters, I found out how incorrect the information used “up there” can be during the fighting. As the story continues we will encounter this sad reality more than once. I cannot avoid mentioning here that, while going to some village or other where they had informed me the division headquarters was located, infantry camouflaged by roadside vegetation halted me in my tracks. It turned out that repeated efforts to capture the village from the Germans had not yet been successful. Lucky once again, I had to go back. At a small farm, I noticed a well-built man, who had taken off his tunic and shirts and was splashing himself under a stream of water, on the porch of a house. Another soldier was pouring water over him from a mess tin. That was how I saw Major Metelitsa, the 9th Artillery Regiment’s chief of staff, for the first time. Greeting me, he stretched out his still wet hand and firmly shook mine. He then examined my papers and quickly decided the matter, by ordering that I be taken to the 2nd Battery. I seldom saw Major Metelitsa again until after war’s end. Although comrades told me that he was a brave and knowledgeable officer, I became better acquainted with him only after the war when I often visited the headquarters to participate in exercises and classes. Simple in conversation, Metelitsa never showed off his high position compared to platoon commanders. We sensed his great experience and knowledge and, therefore, held him in a great deal of respect. Sadly, his life ended tragically on March 7, 1948, when he perished in a car accident near the dam at the 130


Dnepr Hydroelectric Plant while he was returning from tactical exercises with ten other comrades-in-arms, who included the regimental communications chief, Captain Masly and the chief of the regiment’s chemical service, Senior Lieutenant Zharkov. Aleksei Ivanovich Metelitsa was buried at a cemetery in the city of Zaporozh’e. I should probably explain why I have said nothing about the regimental commander. I saw our regimental commander, Lieutenant Colonel Korshunkov, only once or twice during general meetings in the last few months of the war. Furthermore, I never once spoke to him before we achieved victory in May of 1945. I did learn from my comrades that Korshunkov was a new man in the regiment, who had assumed the command of the regiment after its former commander had been promoted. Even the old timers didn’t know him very well. Senior Lieutenant Vasilii Fedorovich Metel’sky commanded the 2nd Artillery Battery, to which I was assigned. However, before meeting him, I found myself at the observation post in the “care” of Andrei Prokof’evich Shutrik. As I later learned, Senior Lieutenant Shutrik, who was the only officer in the battery’s firing positions (there were supposed to be two firing platoon commanders there), had an excellent understanding of all of the intricacies of firing service and possessed undisputed authority when it came to choosing observation posts and determining the road conditions, the cross-country capabilities of cars and trucks, and many other practical skills. The battery to which the messenger led me was deployed in indirect firing positions near a small farm. The battery’s 76 mm ZIS-3 guns were dug in, but they were not sufficiently camouflaged from an IPTAP [tank destroyer artillery regiment] soldier’s point of view. On the other hand, firing indirect fire was not the same as firing over open sights. The battery’s “rear services” were located in a farm building, which was covered with a tiled roof and was enclosed on three sides by brick walls. The building’s fourth side, the eastern side, was wide open. Resting soldiers were sleeping on last year’s straw and on mattresses thrown on the ground under an awning. The battery kitchen was also there, under the awning. I knew from previous experience that, by TO&E [establishment], there was supposed to be one field kitchen for the entire battalion. However, since the firing positions of the three batteries and the several observation posts were considerably dispersed, this would have made it impossible to provide hot food to all of the men. This was why the batteries each had their own kitchens. Sometimes, these field kitchens were only portable pots, which were installed in every new location with the help of pure wit and materials at hand. In our battery, however, we had a trophy German field kitchen, probably a First World War model, which was mounted on tall metal-covered wooden wheels. That kitchen was smoking slightly under the tiled roof, and a small fire was burning close by, near the 131


site where my first meeting with Andrei Prokof’evich took place. He welcomed me like a generous host, quite hospitably and with good will. After putting me near the fire, he immediately gave some quiet commands to the cook, and only then reported my arrival to the battery commander over the phone. The report went something like this: “Valley! I am Bay, fifteenth. Give me sixteenth. Sixteenth, I have zero-eighth. Understood. Will do.” After returning the phone to the telephone operator, Shutrik explained to me that the battery commander had ordered I be brought to the battery’s observation post (OP) after dark. Then, with the help of his orderly Abul’khanov, Andrei Prokof’evich organized a “celebratory dinner” for me, after which I slept like a baby until late in the night. My exhaustion after the long and dangerous trip, compounded by my aching left leg, did me in. When I finally woke up, the soldiers were already preparing thermoses containing dinners for those at the OP. Saying good-bye, Shutrik asked me to tell him about what was going on at the OP as often as possible and in detail, such as where the battery was firing and with what results, as he said, “Because it is as if we were blind here. We don’t know anything, and the sixteenth doesn’t tell us.” The four of us set out; me, two soldiers with the thermoses, and battery Sergeant Major Zherdev, who had a knapsack stuffed with bread and something else. At the last minute, however, Shutrik noticed that I was unarmed. He immediately found a PPSh [A Shpagin PPSH model 1941 submachine gun], only one without its ammunition belt. “It’s OK,” he added, “Your scouts will find you something!” Here I should add a few words about Shutrik. He had fought as an artilleryman throughout the entire war, and, it seems, even the Finnish campaign of 1939–1940 on top of that. But he had not been wounded even once – it was rare luck indeed! His mother lived somewhere in the Belorussian forests, and, as far as I know, Andrei Prokof’evich had no other relatives. As I already mentioned, due to his vast experience, he knew his job thoroughly. He issued his commands in a loud, hoarse voice, and also talked loudly – a habit caused by the necessity of speaking over the roar of battle so that he could be heard at every one of the battery’s four guns. He also loved to use a few choice curses when required, always adding his own trademark oath, “Ah, $@$# @$#@ nehai!” at the end. That is what the other soldiers called him behind his back – “Nehai.” Shutrik also had the habit of working at the guns with any mechanism or device with his bare hands, without paying any heed to the frost and cold. This especially amazed me and my other comrades during the post-war years, since we all served together until the end of 1947. He did not wear gloves of any kind during any degree of frost, nor did he even seem to have any gloves. 132


Figure 4.1 A telephone operator in a dugout shelter (drawn by E. Moniushko).

His flair for practicality was apparent everywhere and in everything he did. For example, there was always a stockpile of trophy “grub” at the firing positions, and there was always a reserve there of excess and unaccounted for ammunition. Here I need to explain that, despite the harsh combat conditions, or maybe precisely because of them, the ammunition was always strictly accounted for, and we even had to turn in the casings of spent artillery rounds. However, in the tank destroyer regiments, many of which were equipped with the same guns as the divisional artillery, some liberties were permitted, but only if they were related to the specifics of their “work.” For example, while they were hurriedly changing their positions, the soldiers in the IPTAP [tank destroyer artillery] sometimes had time to load only armor-piercing [AP] rounds, and, of course, first and foremost, the scarcer sub-caliber ones, but then left the high-explosive [HE] rounds laid out at their former firing positions. And Andrei Prokof’evich did not let this opportunity to acquire these unexpected riches pass him by. After he received his discharge after the war ended, Shutrik continued writing to the regiment, not to me, but instead to those comrades with whom he had fought throughout the war, not only during the war’s last months but also as far back as while he was serving in the Leningrad Front. They said that, after war’s end, he had to live in a dugout because the Germans had burned down his entire village. He also wrote that he was sorry that he had not brought any firearms with him because wolves had beset him. But let’s return to the time of war. I barely remember the battery commander Metel’sky’s OP, which our small group led by Sergeant Major Zherdev reached after dark. So as not 133


to lose our way to the OP, we used the tried and true method of following a telephone line. We and others who did not know the way to the OP simply guided ourselves in the correct direction by tracing the telephone wire to the OP with the palms of our hands, just as the telephone operators did when they were searching for a break in the line. However, since tracing the wires at a fast walk over a long distance rubbed the skin of our palms, we looped a belt around the wire as protection. Invariably, the telephone line led to the target, but only if it was not broken. In this regard, I recall one instance when, while following a phone line in the dark, a signalman from one of our regiment’s batteries let go of the “string” and, instead, picked up the wrong wire laid nearby. Since no continuous front line existed at this time, he then followed the false trail right into the enemy’s positions. Suddenly realizing his mistake shortly after sunrise, he hid for the entire day, and then followed the same line back to our positions after dark. Our battery’s OP was located right in the first line of infantry trenches. Rather than being located in the trench itself, the OP exploited the darkness by being situated right on top of the ground but behind the trench line. After being forced to sit in the damp trench for a prolonged period of time, the soldiers who manned them wanted to stretch their limbs and warm themselves by moving about on top. Such a luxury was permissible at this time because the no-man’s-land between our positions and those of the enemy was quite wide, if fact, more than 500 meters, as I learned later. Immediately after we arrived at the OP, Senior Lieutenant Metel’sky began reprimanding Sergeant Major Zherdev because he hadn’t managed to bring food to the OP before dawn, and, therefore, the men had gone hungry throughout the entire day. That was precisely why Zherdev himself participated in delivering the hot food – usually they had managed without it. On that occasion, we were able to observe and appreciate Vasilii Fedorovich Metel’sky’s high culture and good manners, even during that unpleasant conversation. Despite the emotionally heated atmosphere, his language was polite, and he did not employ the “strong expressions” which were usual in such situations. Because of his obvious agitation, however, Metel’sky’s native Belorussian accent was readily apparent in his speech. No sooner had I arrived then they gave me a short briefing on the situation and about my new platoon. My predecessor had died back in January 1945 while leading his battery in an escape from a German encirclement around the town of Krapits. Sergeant Stepanenko, the reconnaissance squad leader, was in charge of the platoon before I arrived, but my arrival returned him to his former, less privileged position. Apparently, that is why, from the very beginning, the relationship between us was somewhat strained. Unfortunately, these strained relations endured right up to the time he was discharged soon after the war ended. In fact, he was 134


the only man in the platoon with whom I could not find a common language. Apparently, the battery commander sensed this as well. That is why he assigned work so that Stepanenko and I were usually in different locations. The platoon’s telephone communications were the responsibility of Sergeant Major Morozov, and Iura Travkin supervised the platoon’s radio operators. Insofar as my memory permits, I will briefly introduce the platoon’s soldiers to the readers. I have already mentioned Sergeant Stepanenko. As they often say in the Army, he was a “martinet.” While demanding a lot from his subordinates, he also tended to take personal advantage of his command position. Despite the obvious shortage of personnel, somehow he managed to exclude himself in the OP’s duty roster. It also took a considerable effort to alter the roster he had already established. Vasilii Tarasovich Kolechko, a senior sergeant by rank, was a senior scout by virtue of his duty position. You could say that he was a born scout. More than once, I heard from my comrades, including other officers, that, despite wearing a higher rank than Sergeant Stepanenko, he had been denied command of a squad because he argued his opinion too aggressively in front of a more senior commander. In my opinion, that talk was not groundless. On more than one occasion, I observed Vasilii Tarasovich heatedly insisting on his opinion, a quality that very few liked. I will say more about Senior Sergeant Kolechko than the others, both here and further on, primarily because, from the very day I arrived in the regiment, he was my first adviser, a genuine friend, and, in many respects, even my teacher. The close relationship between us endured through war’s end, until the post-war reforms and his discharge separated us. He was from the Ukraine, I believe from the Poltava region. Several years older than me, he was taller “by a head” in terms of his combat experience. He had been in the army since before the war, and, out of ingrained habit, he addressed me and others using their position titles (I was “platoon commander”) rather than their ranks. Although I am not sure, I suspect that the battery commander Metel’sky entrusted him with the task of taking care of me. Kolechko literally became my shadow. Not to mention performing such household tasks as eating and resting, I constantly felt him close by. No sooner did I take one step from the dugout, then, grabbing a PPSh, he followed after me, silently reminding me that it wasn’t recommended to move about alone. And when it became Kolechko’s turn to man the OP, he entrusted the task of watching over me to Tolia Frolov. Probably the youngest soldier in our platoon, Tolia was a very conscientious and diligent soldier, but was not yet sufficiently experienced. A Komi by nationality from the city of Syktyvkar, Tolia’s confidence was continually undermined by his weak grasp of the Russian language. There were two more scouts, whose names were Timofeev and Vikentii 135


Sabynich. I do not remember them well since they never worked at my forward OP where I spent much of my time. The Germans had captured Timofeev at the beginning of the war, but Pskov partisans had then liberated him, and for some time thereafter, he had served in a partisan detachment. After the Red Army liberated Pskov [the 3rd Baltic Front on July 23, 1944], Timofeev had been drafted into the army once again. He rode a motorcycle well and was constantly sent on various errands for the battery commander. While Sabynich was officially a scout, in practice he served as Metel’sky’s orderly. It was quite usual for a scout to act as a battery commander’s orderly. As far as I recall, Sabynich was from somewhere in the Baltic region and was both a calm and a practical man. He could do anything required to maintain necessary living conditions, including furnishing a dugout, cook meals, and repair or even sew clothes. Like Timofeev, he did not work at the forward OP, even though he did serve as an observer at Metel’sky’s OP. Knowing his ability to sew, officers approached him on that matter immediately after the war ended. With Metel’sky’s permission, Sabynich furnished many of the soldiers with peak caps, which he was very good at making. Sergeant Major Morozov, who was in charge of the platoon’s telephone operators, was older than many of the soldiers and even the officers. As I recall, he was about 40 years old. An experienced and battle-hardened soldier, he constantly wore the Order of the Red Star on his tunic. He was responsible for organizing all telephone communications, a task which he managed successfully. Morozov’s only weakness was his tendency to drink too much. Nevertheless, his comrades and commanders held him in high respect. Thanks to Morozov and similar telephone aces in other batteries in the battalion, we always felt as if we formed a single combat entity. It was these skilled and practical specialists who dreamed up the idea of constructing a telephone switchboard out of submachine gun ammunition casings, which serving our battalion successfully during the war, and was not replaced by an industrially produced switchboard until after war’s end. I do not remember the last names of all of the platoon’s telephone operators. I do remember Mikhailov, P’iankov, and Sukhanov, and, of course, Vania Skorogonov, who was the best of them all. Although one year older than I, to me Vania looked like a boy, even though I was not yet even 20 years old. He had been wounded right through his chest and captured in 1943, but after barely recovering, he had managed to escape to join the partisans. He finally returned to the army from the partisans and found himself in the 9th Artillery Regiment. He was distinguished by his calm bravery and utter reliability. Without waiting for an order, he went under fire when a communications line was broken, and he always restored the connection. Vania was also lucky in combat. Despite being constantly in the most 136


crucial and dangerous places, after being wounded for the first time, bullets and shell fragments did not touch him. However, during a post-war exercise, Skorogonov cut his hand on a steel telephone cable, his tendons became inflamed, and he lost the ability to move one of his fingers. For that reason, Vania was discharged ahead of time and departed the Army for the Sverdlovsk region. Like Frolov, Sukhanov was also one of the youngest men in the platoon. He was from the Arkhangel’sk region. Perhaps because of his youthfulness, he was not nearly as reliable as Skorogonov. He was almost never at the forward OP – he would simply lay the wire, and then back to the “Valley” or the “Bay.” I will add more about the others as the story unfolds. But I do want to emphasize here that my experienced subordinates, privates and noncommissioned officers alike, provided me with a considerable amount of practical advice in a very short period of time. In short, they taught me a lot. I now realize that the 1st Tomsk Artillery Academy, which I had graduated from in 1944 after a shortened program, had concentrated on the study of firing service and artillery theory. However, the academy provided me with very little of the practical knowledge necessary to function properly as a officer in a headquarters. As a result, when I arrived as a complete novice in the IPTAP firing platoon after leaving the academy, I did not sense my own lack of experience and knowledge. But now, after returning from the hospital to become a headquarters officer, I really did feel that lack of experience. Therefore, I owe a debt of gratitude to my friends and comrades who helped me and taught me my “soldiers’ combat wisdom.” During the first few days after my arrival in the 9th Artillery Battery, my battery commander, Metel’sky, kept me with him at his OP, which was sometimes co-located with the OP of Senior Lieutenant Malyshev, the commander of the 3rd Howitzer Battery. I recall that Malyshev would employ smoke shells in order to recognize the explosions of his own shells when the fire was too dense. On these occasions, a tall, white plume of smoke would suddenly appear amidst the dense brown cloud of dust thrown into the air by the other shells. However, this technique was not always effective since Malyshev was not the only commander using it. Usually, we tried to carry out all of our movements to a new OP at night. While the warmth from the sun lingered during the day, the winter’s cold still dominated during the night, especially when our feet and clothes were all wet. But we warmed ourselves by moving. We were usually so tired that, when walking in a single file, each soldier held on to the soldier in front of him, and, while walking in this fashion, some of the soldiers even fell asleep while on the move. When the battery commander halted the column so that he could check his location, many soldiers immediately lay down in the snow. When we reached the site of the new OP, we still 137


had to dig in, lay news communications, and organize observation points and security outposts. After this process went on for several days, I began my “sit-in” at the FOP (forward observation post), a process that would continue almost uninterrupted to war’s end. Before departing to man my first FOP, my soldiers and I spent the entire night along the edge of an empty irrigation ditch, or rather, a small canal. On this occasion, the Germans had prepared a surprise for us by releasing water from somewhere above us. Those who were asleep lying along the slope awoke to find themselves in water almost up to their waists. Since there was nowhere to start a fire, we dried ourselves using our own body warmth. I did not have a map then, so I cannot provide the exact coordinates. But I do recall the names of the nearby settlements quite precisely. They were the towns of Iurdansmuhl and Dankwitz. A map that I recently found and examined indicated that the canal was actually either the bed of the Loe or Gorss-Loe Rivers, which was strewn with small rocks. While both of these small rivers flow through the area, it is impossible to determine in which of them the Germans had given us our bath. Hill 718.0, which was located 10–15 kilometers from the river, can serve as a landmark. It could be seen well from anywhere, since it towered about 500 meters above the surrounding region. Like all of the subsequent ones, my first FOP was assigned the call sign, “Valley-1.” It was located on the northern side of Hill 188.1, about 100 meters from the top of the gently sloping hill. There was a dugout shelter there, which had been constructed by cutting into the side of a 2-meterdeep irrigation ditch. Since water was flowing along the bottom of the ditch, you were able to move only along a narrow path beaten right near the water’s edge. All of this movement had to take place under cover of darkness because the ditch was perpendicular to the front line and could be observed by the enemy. The shallow trenches of our supporting infantrymen ran next to our dugout and extended to the top of Hill 188.1 on the left. We occupied the trenches on the hill and to the left, while the “Fritzes” manned the trenches to the right all the way to the edge of the town of Dankwitz. Since Hill 188.1 was not located in the sector of the rifle unit our artillery battery was supporting, our FOP was not, it seems, deployed on the slopes of the hill to provide artillery support to that unit. However, if that had been our mission, our good field of view would have enabled us to provide better support to “our” infantry. The presence of my FOP within the infantry’s combat formations was basically only a formality since I could not direct the battery’s fire myself since I did not have a map and did not know the exact coordinates of the firing positions. But, of course, thanks to the presence of reliable communications, I could always report the situation to the battery commander, call for fire, and even communicate with the entire artillery battalion. I 138


Figure 4.2 From Neisse to Waldenburg. The area of operations of the 9th Artillery Regiment during February–May 1945 (1:500,000 scale) (drawn by E. Moniushko).

could also correct the fire, but only through the battery commander by transmitting the deviations of the exploding shells from the target as measured by meters and direction. The battery commander himself was supposed to convert this data into the necessary elevation and deflection settings for the guns. The main thing was that the artillerymen were next to the infantry, as required by the field regulations. Our dugout at the FOP was a small one, approximately 2 ⫻ 2 meters in width and about 1 meter in height, which permitted us only to lie down in a prone position. It is easy to explain why this was so. First, taking into account camouflage requirements, we could not construct a high roof because we had no camouflage materials. Second, the water running through the ditch prevented us from digging any deeper. The dugout’s roof was constructed from only boards and straw, covered with a thin layer of dirt. There was no layer of logs on top of the dugout. A ground sheet substituted for the door and we rolled it up during daylight hours for illumination. During the nights, we used so-called “telephone illumination,” which was a piece of PTF-7 telephone cable wrapped in cotton insulation soaked in resin that would burn with a dim smoky flame. We hung this device on stakes driven into the entire perimeter of the dugout’s walls. 139


During the evening we would light one end of the cable and, within several hours, it would burn through to the other end. By morning, our faces, hands, and clothes would be all blackened with soot. On rare occasions, however, we would get trophy candles called “lampions.” We conducted our actual observations using a “Scout-type” periscope, which we stuck right through the boards of the dugout’s roof. Just as in our positions, however, during the day-time we could observe no movement inside the Germans’ positions. The hulks of two burned-out tanks stood between our trenches and the edge of Dankwitz. They had been destroyed before our arrival at the FOP. The infantrymen told us that mines had destroyed them both. They brought food to us twice daily, before dawn and after the darkness settled. Recalling the cold bath the Germans had given us, we constantly and carefully monitored the water level in the ditch. A corpse lay in the water near the entrance to the dugout. A small swirling current of water flowed through the corpse’s back, which was sticking out of the water, and left a line of bubbles on the corpse’s greatcoat. When the water level fell, the line of bubbles could be seen for some time above the water level. If the water level rose, the distance shrank between the bubbles and the water. The rising water often alarmed us: 10–15 centimeters and more, and we would have had to bail out the dugout, quite probably right under the enemy’s fire. Apparently, Hill 188.1 was of great interest to the Germans since, from it, one could observe for a distance of at least 2–3 kilometers into our rear. One day the Germans suddenly broke through our lines to the hill. This wasn’t difficult because the combat formations of the infantry were quite dispersed and not continuous. On this occasion, the battalion commander immediately organized a counterattack and beat the Germans back. This incident alarmed the command and, on that same day, after darkness set in, the battery commander, Metel’sky, appeared at the FOP with the remainder of my platoon. Several holes had been dug into the sides of the ditch next to our dugout and a small number of replacements had arrived for the infantry. During the night, the Germans fired at our positions with a small caliber anti-aircraft machine gun mounted on an armored personnel carrier (APC). We could hear the sound of its engine quite well, and the long bursts of tracer shells flew from the APC to the forward slopes of the hill. Since the crackling sound of the exploding shells and the sounds of the firing itself merged into one crescendo, it seemed to us that that we were being fired upon from somewhere quite near. Actually, however, that was probably not the case. In any event, on Metel’sky’s orders, our battery began firing almost blindly, since we did not know the target’s exact location. Besides, the Germans always fired while constantly changing their firing positions. Still, after our battery fired several salvos, the German fire ceased. 140


The next morning began with yet another attempt by the Germans to capture Hill 188.1, this time, after a rather heavy artillery bombardment. Although no artillery pieces larger than 105 mm participated, the fire was so dense for more than 15 minutes that you almost could not tell the different explosions apart during this unbroken roar and wail of shells and shell fragments. And they repeated this shelling more than once. From the very beginning of this bombardment, the firing interrupted our telephone communications. The radio operators, Ivanov and Burenkov, who had arrived with Metel’sky the day before, immediately deployed their A7-A radio set and contacted the battery. As soon as the bombardment subsided a bit, another telephone operator, Sukhanov, was sent on my order to check the lines. Time passed but the communications were not restored, even though it was clear that the break was somewhere close to the OP since the Germans had not fired into our rear area. Finally, Vania Skorogonov crawled back along the wire, quickly located and repaired the broken wire, and dragged Sukhanov back with him. He had been lying there alive and well. By that time, Metel’sky was already issuing orders to Shutrik by radio. Nevertheless, as soon as the firing platoons’ call sign “Bay” was heard through the crackle and rustle of cables being reconnected, the battery commander abandoned the radio and came over to the telephone operators. Like many other commanders during this time, he either mistrusted radio communications or he had an exaggerated impression of the Germans’ capabilities for radio homing; that is, locating the site of radio transmissions and then firing on them. In order to complete the story about the battle at Hill 188.1, I must note that, even if the Germans managed to capture the hill the day before, if only briefly, because of our command’s timely actions, all of their efforts produced only short-lived success. This time, all of our artillerymen who were not directly involved in directing the battery’s fire participated in repelling the enemy’s attacks by fighting as infantry. Although I have already mentioned several things about our communications, I should discuss this matter in even greater detail. Our platoon was equipped with two types of radios, the A7-A radio and the RBM radio. The former had a shorter range of about 10–15 kilometers depending on the receive mode and the condition of its batteries. Since it worked on the principle of frequency modulation (FM), it was less affected by interference. We used the A7-A radio with a microphone, and, in general, the radio operators preferred to use the microphone device since the majority of them did not feel very comfortable with transmissions by Morse code. In that respect, Iura Travkin and Kostia Shalaev were better operators than the others. They were the “owners” of the RBM radio station, which was significantly more powerful than the A7-A and had a significantly greater range. Unlike the A7-A radio, however, the RBM station was far heavier and came in two crates. I cannot explain exactly 141


Figure 4.3 The area of operations during the second half of February 1945 (1:50,000 scale) (drawn by E. Moniushko).

who helped the radio operators to carry their radio stations, but I do recall that soldiers with other specialities were involved. Not long before I arrived in the regiment, Junior Sergeant Kostia Shalaev had distinguished himself by providing communications for a portion of the 9th Artillery Regiment encircled in the vicinity of the town of Krapin. He had been justly rewarded with the Order of the Red Star for his skill and bravery. In order to provide necessary communications, the RBM’s antenna had to be raised as high as possible, and, on this occasion, Kostia had been transmitting from the top floor of a building near which a German tank had taken up a firing position. Later, during the second half of March, Kostia was temporarily left without his precious charge, the RBM. In the midst of a battle, while we were running to another observation post while under enemy fire, his radio set was struck by a shell fragment and was damaged irreparably. Fortunately, however, the shell fragments did not reach his back, even though the blow was quite hard and Shalaev fell down as if he were dead. I want to emphasize once again that the majority of officers considered the telephone as the primary means of communications. And this was so in reality. At the earliest possible opportunity, we laid a cable phone wire to our OP or FOP, and, if the disposition remained constant for a while, we also laid “permanent” wire line. We used this word “permanent” for any phone line we laid, even if it did not involve regular telephone cable, but 142


instead consisted of only improvised materials such as pieces of various electric lines, many of which could be found along the roads, or different pieces of wire, sometimes including even barbed wire. Since such hand-made wires lacked any insulation, we installed it on various supports, such as posts, and we stretched it through the air between trees and the ruins of buildings, while also trying to establish parallel sectors for greater reliability and more stable communications. The name “permanent” originated from its similarity to permanent lines of “civilian” wire communications, which were installed on poles. First, use of the “permanent” line permitted us to roll up the regular cable beforehand, and avoid wasting any time doing so when we were required to change our location. Obviously, in the vicinity of the OP itself and in areas under enemy observation, we did not replace the cable lines with “permanent” ones. Second, the use of the “permanent” wire lines allowed us to create a more elaborate communications network with more branches. After all, the supply of regular cable in the battery was not very large; it amounted to a total of only 10–12 kilometers of wire. Nevertheless, every coin has two sides – the “permanent” line also had a significant drawback of its own. The large number of joints and the wire’s poor insulation, especially during wet weather, lowered the audibility of the line. While you could still hear a conversation, the ring would not go through more than a distance of 4–5 kilometers. However, we did not consider this to be a major problem since, as a rule, we did not use the ring capabilities of our phones. We tried not to employ ringing telephones in our battery’s communications network, since the ring could reveal the position of an OP. After all, the no-man’s-land was sometimes so narrow that every sound could be clearly heard. The most common telephones were the UNA-F phones, which had a phonic call but no load ring. On this phone, a call button replaced the loud ring. When you pressed the call button, you could hear a buzz in the earpiece at the receiving end. However, it was not always easy to hear this buzz, even discounting all of the surrounding noise. Besides, the frequent use of the call button mechanism quickly depleted the telephone’s scarce batteries. A telephone operator was on duty at each and every telephone plugged into the line. With the help of a loop made out of a piece of bandage and worn around the head, the operator pressed the phone’s receiver to his ear and responded after hearing his call sign transmitted by voice. Since there were usually two telephone operators at each OP or FOP, one of them was on duty and the other rested or did something else. Thus, you can say that telephone operators went through half the war with a receiver tied to their ears. It was impossible to leave the telephone, even for a short period of time, without transferring the duty to someone else. In addition, sheer combat necessity dictated that our communications be 143


ready for use immediately in many critical situations. The lack of a proper immediate response would raise the alarm across the entire line. And the call signs sounded out every three-to-five minutes. If several phones were plugged into a given line, a dozing operator did not even notice the call signs of another recipient. But, when he heard his own call sign, even in his sleep, he responded almost automatically, and, in similar fashion, he automatically called the next station in line from time to time. In trenches, in dugouts, in the basements of ruined buildings, or somewhere in the attic under the broken tiles of roofs, one could hear a muffled voice say, “Bay!” Several seconds later, you could hear the response, “Bay is listening,” spoken by an operator with a different voice, followed by the words, “I am ‘Valley-one,’ Check up.” If the caller did not respond, not a moment would pass before a telephone operator would leave to check the line, grabbing his weapon, a phone, and a piece of wire, accompanied either by one of the scouts or by his partner. In that case, either a scout or the platoon commander himself would sit down at the phone. At the same time, a similar pair of operators would depart to check the line from the other end, where they were supposed to notice the absence of communications. After finding the break and restoring the connection, they would usually wait for the comrades from the other end. Otherwise, they would have to walk the entire line from one end to the other without finding the break, and then return back. In places that were convenient for laying wire lines, such as ditches and hollows that were hidden from enemy observation and whose location precluded any damage by the tracks of friendly tanks, we would lay more than one phone line. If a random shell exploded in these places, it wasn’t easy to recognize your wire on the other side of the crater among the dozens of other torn and broken wires. That is why you had to have a telephone while going out to check the line. You could find the break by connecting a phone to each broken cable, in turn – if, of course, there was no other break further on. The portable TAT-F phone, where all parts were placed right in the receiver, was the best equipment for such work, and, in addition, there was no need to drag the phone’s wooden case along. However, these phones were quite scarce. When going out to check the lines, some telephone operators took with them only a telephone capsule, which was a headphone with two connecting wires. By using this device, however, you could only listen to the line, but could not call anybody in order to communicate anything. In that case, you had to make arrangements with the operators on the broken lines beforehand so that they would continue to announce their call signs. In short, as was the case in all other work, there were special professional tricks of the trade, such as learning how to ground the line on the frozen ground, how to use the sight on a carbine to cut telephone cable, and many other things. 144


Figure 4.4 The 2nd Battery, 9th Artillery Regiment’s forward OP near the town of Dankvic on the northern slope of Hill 188.1 on February 1, 1945 (drawn by E. Moniushko).

I also had to spend a considerable amount of time, particularly when at the FOP, where there weren’t enough telephone operators, sitting at the telescope with a telephone receiver in my ear. And sometimes, after responding to the call sign, instead of the usual, “I am Bay, check up,” I would hear Shutrik’s hoarse voice, saying, “Listen, zero-eighth. What do you see?” Then a long and detailed exchange of information would follow, which often brightened up the slowly passing hours of duty. Since we are discussing communications, we should not forget the socalled “intermediates,” which were the intermediate telephone stations. In those cases when the communications line was very long and the time required to seek out and repair a break in the line was excessive, we organized an “intermediate” in the middle of the line (of course, if there were enough men to do so). In case this line broke, the existence of the “intermediate” shortened the length of the supposed damaged sector and the time necessary to restore the connection by half. However, duty at an “intermediate” was not a very pleasant occupation. First, you were separated from your comrades. Second, you had to go to search out breaks twice as often than one would have to from the ends of the line. After all, the operator at an “intermediate” had to go out in the event that interruptions occurred along either half of the line, while those at the ends had to 145


go out from the ends only if the connection to the “intermediate” was broken. Sergeant Major Morozov, who was in charge of the telephone operators in my platoon, knew the men longer than I, and always took care in assigning them to various posts. In his opinion, there were some positive aspects to being assigned as an “intermediate.” First and foremost, an “intermediate” had a certain degree of isolation and was a safe distance from his superiors. That is why, when setting the platoon’s communications, he would assign himself as an “intermediate.” Once, either at the end of February or the beginning of March (I recall this instance because the ground was still wet from the melted snow), the “intermediate” went totally silent. The experienced Vasia Kolechko was very uneasy about this rare occurrence; there had been no artillery fire in the area where the line had been laid, any movement by our vehicles was simply out of the question because it would have been heard, and, more importantly, while only the “intermediate” was silent, there were communications along the remainder of the line. We could not, however, discount the possibility that this was the work of an enemy diversionary group. Therefore, the three of us, Kolechko, I, and someone else from the signalmen, went out to check the line. On this occasion, we decided not to use the tried and true method of moving along the cable so as to avoid falling into a possible ambush. Taking all necessary precautions, and dirty from head to toe with spring mud, we made our way to the small dugout. Things turned out to be rather simple. After taking a good swig from his flask [presumably of vodka], Morozov had fallen fast asleep with the telephone receiver at his ear. His partner was free from duty at the time and, naturally, was also asleep. The usually restrained Kolechko woke Morozov up by firing half of his submachine gun magazine into the dugout wall above Morozov’s head. Since I had left the FOP after receiving the battery commander’s prior permission, I had to report to him about the results of our “expedition.” Furiously, Metel’sky forbade Morozov to ever man an “intermediate” from that point to the very end of the war. I also had to spend two or three days at an “intermediate” myself. I had caught a bad cold somewhere near Iurdansmuhl, and the battery commander sent me to an “intermediate,” which, at that time, was situated in excellent quarters, a stationary position formerly belonging to German air defense forces. At that time, my technical knowledge was obviously insufficient for me to identify the remaining equipment in this position. Now, however, after having studied at the Khar’kov Radio-Technical Academy, and remembering what I saw back then in 1945, I have concluded that the positions had been an anti-aircraft fire direction station. Its radar worked in the 10 centimeter range. It had been partially damaged during the fighting in that area, but judging by the fact that some of the position’s racks were empty, the Germans had removed a portion of the position’s equip146


ment during their retreat. The most important thing for us was that all of the station’s living and work quarters were located in well-constructed houses built on solid concrete foundations. There was even a cast iron stove and a coal stockpile since Silesia was mining country. My telephone operator, P’iankov, was there with me, and he soon taught me to work with coal as a fuel. Before that time, both at home and while at the academy, I had only dealt with firewood. I would take an almost bucket-sized chunk of coal in one hand and turn it this way and that, looking for a good spot. Then, with a light strike of a hammer, I would separate a sliver large enough to fit exactly into the small door of the cast iron stove. At about twice my age, P’iankov was far more experienced in that than I, and his strength surpassed mine by an even greater margin. But I did learn something, and, by the end of the second day, the stove was successfully warming our shelter under my direction. But let’s get back to the matter of reconnaissance. Today, I cannot remember exactly how many forward OPs Senior Sergeant Kolechko and I manned in so short a period of time. As a rule, we were usually deployed in forward positions among the forward rifle companies. It is interesting to compare the various definitions of “forward positions” that existed at different levels. For example, while some considered the command posts of first echelon regiments or even first echelon divisions as “forward positions,” the infantry correctly considered even the divisional artillery’s indirect firing positions as being deep in the rear area. However, without boasting, I can say that, from any point of view, our “Valley-1” was really in the “forward positions.” Although I have already stressed this fact, I must emphasize once again the limited capabilities of our forward OP. All actions were the responsibility of the battery commander and went through him. While we had no maps, and we did not know the exact locations of our firing positions, still, our presence in the infantry’s trenches raised the spirit and morale of the infantry company and platoon commanders, and even the privates as well. After all, they thought, the artillery was nearby and would help out if anything happened. Of course, besides our direct involvement in the many types of actions, our primary task was to conduct reconnaissance and send all of the information we obtained about anything and everything to the battery commander and the battalion’s chief of intelligence. After turning our positions over to other units in the beginning of March, we left for another sector, as we would later find out, in the Grottkau region, as usual after darkness fell. We rode part of the way on trucks. Then, after leaving our guns and their tractors in the firing positions, all of the soldiers of the battalion headquarters, the headquarters platoons of the three batteries, and the battalion headquarters platoon went to the area of our new observations posts, carrying our weapons, telescopes, aiming circles, telephones, wire drums, map-cases, radios, and 147


knapsacks containing various things on our backs. We walked crosscountry in the dark, frequently slipping on wet ground. White snow could still be seen in some places – where large snow banks had formed during the winter. Only the battery commanders knew the routes, and every 15–20 minutes Gavrilenko, Metel’sky, and Malyshev, the three senior lieutenant battery commanders who were walking in the lead, would stop and check their location with the map and a compass, while concealing themselves with a ground sheet and illuminating their map and compass with a flashlight. The entire line halted, and, despite the cold and a monotonous drizzle, the tired men immediately lay down in the mud and snow. We had to watch carefully so that no one fell behind and got lost, and raise those who were lying down when the march resumed. And I myself yearned to lie down for at least several minutes. My wound, which had not completely healed, was still aching. Bushes and occasional trees could be seen several meters away to the left and right, but then only darkness. Somewhere far to the left, the sky was sometimes illuminated by the light from flares. But then a forest suddenly appeared ahead against a background of the dark sky. It was noticeable with its tree shapes, even blacker than the night sky, and by a white stripe at the base of this black massif – the snow that hadn’t yet melted under the trees. We had to enter that forest, pass through it, and come out to its southern edge where the forward positions were now located. But there was a wide ditch between the forest and us, and it was filled with water. Nor was it possible to find another way around it. We found some logs and threw them over the ditch. How we managed to cross with that heavy load of equipment and pick our way over that slippery and mudcovered “bridge” was incomprehensible. Probably, we were fortified by the thought that there would be nowhere to dry ourselves after our accidental baths. Thus, we crossed. Even though that grove of trees did not have any name on our topographical maps, on our trophy German map it was identified as the Grottkau city forest (Grottkauer Stadt Forst). Fortunately, we did not have to dig in at the new location. Instead, we received our trenches and dugouts from those who had been there before us. It was heavenly, a dream! That, incidentally, was the advantage of those who arrived first. There were not enough living quarters for those who arrived later, so they had to take up their axes and shovels. At dawn we occupied an OP at the forest’s edge. It was located in a prepared trench, with overhead cover and a window for the telescope. According to our visual estimation on a 1:100,000 scale map, its coordinates were: X ⫽ 56 15750 and Y ⫽ 36 59600. Once the communications were laid, we again began our unbroken duty shifts as scouts. At this time, there was no forward OP. Instead, everyone was concentrated together 148


under Metel’sky, who was in charge of the OP. In the depth of the forest, about 100–150 meters from the edge, soldiers had constructed other dugouts for us to rest. Even during the day you could light a stove, and food could be brought to the OP not only after dark but also during the daylight. These were indeed resort conditions. Once at the OP, we observed and studied everything that could be seen from it from dawn until dusk. There was no infantry whatsoever in front of us since the OP was located as far forward as possible along the first line of trenches passing along the edge of the forest. The trench lie, however, was still occupied by “strange” infantry; since the rifle regiments of our 72nd Rifle Division had not yet arrived. They would arrive later, having marched all of the way forward on foot. The no-man’s-land in front of our OP was not very wide, perhaps about 300–400 meters. The “Fritzes’ ” first trench line was clearly visible to us. The breastworks, which were covered with neither sod nor any other type of camouflage, stood out quite distinctly. Apparently, the Germans had been driven from the forest and had taken up these new positions during the battle. During the day, there was no noise, movement or shots along our front. During the night only a single flare occasionally lit up the darkness. The observers, including me, manned unbroken shifts at the telescope. Without a doubt, the best observer among us was Vasilii Tarasovich. Being a true “professor” in that line of work, he alone could extract information from almost nothing. Although it was barely perceptible, the enemy’s breastwork at that spot was a bit higher and the extent of the dug up soil was a bit wider. After watching that suspicious place in the breastwork for hours, Vasilii noticed a cat wandering around and concluded that there was a dugout there. He declared, “A cat would not live in an empty trench.” Subsequently, an entry about a “Fritz cat” appeared in the daily reconnaissance journal – by habit, Kolechko never said “Germans.” He always referred to them as “Fritzes.” Thanks to Vasilii’s keen skills and acute powers of observation, this was the way targets were identified in our sector. Each day I passed the intelligence update to Aleksandr Romanov, who was the battalion’s chief of intelligence. This data went “upstairs” through the battalion to the regimental headquarters, where it was plotted on maps and became the primary basis for the regiment’s artillery firing plans. Gradually, the atmosphere began heating up. After several days had passed, one could sense preparations for something more serious. More and more artillery OPs appeared within the forward positions, and, since the nature of the terrain did not allow them to spread out into the depth, it became very crowded at the edge of the forest. We shared our data about the enemy with the new arrivals. From the very first day of these preparations, we realized that we would advance from this point and no longer sit in defense for any length of time. Despite the fact that, at night, it took no 149


fewer than two hours to make our way from the area of the battalion’s firing positions to the OPs, it turned out that the base (that is what the artillerymen call the distance between the firing positions and the OP) was only 3 kilometers. This meant that the guns were as far forward as possible, so that when the advance began, we would not have to change our combat formation immediately. While delivering the thermoses filled with soup and porridge, Sergeant Major Zherdev’s messengers told us that it was also crowded “in the rear area,” that is, in and around the firing positions. My phone operators laid the “permanent” line, and, soon after, under the pretext of inspecting their work, I received the battery commander’s permission to leave the OP for several hours in order to go to Shutrik’s “shop,” to “Bay.” What I saw and heard there made an immense impression on me. The high density of artillery even occasionally led to heated conflicts among the assembling units. All of the new arrivals occupied their positions in the dark of night. And when the dawn came, it often turned out that some of the firing batteries were pointed at the backs of those that had previously arrived and were deployed along their front. Obviously, in these circumstances, it was dangerous or completely impossible to fire. Sometimes they would even break up some buildings in order to deploy the new batteries, and those same buildings had previously served as the aiming points for guns already deployed. This required the guns that had lost their aiming points to once again recalculate and correct all of their deflection data for all of their prepared firing missions. Representatives from division, corps, and army artillery headquarters would help to resolve all of these differences, but not without frequent arguments and considerable cursing. Although Andrei Prokof’evich had told me about all of this, I saw it for myself first hand while I was amidst the forest of gun tubes that had assembled along the northeastern edge of the still leafless grove of trees. I saw the 160 mm mortar for the first time while I was there. From afar, this mortar looked as if signalmen were installing poles for a phone line along the road. However, as I came closer, I saw that these poles were really long, and almost vertical, mortar barrels. My “permanent” line was all in order, and, as usual, everything was also in order at Shutrik’s battery. Either because he wanted to check his men’s training again or simply show off their skills, Shutrik was summoning the crews to their guns and assigning them targets. After jumping out of their dugouts, the gun-layers were spinning their aiming devices, almost without looking at the guns’ shields where they had written down their targets. Ready! We checked. It turned out that the gunner for the first gun, Kuznetsov, knew from memory the number of turns of the fly-wheels required for vertical and horizontal laying in order to lay the gun from their initial position to any given target. Shutrik was satisfied. While en 150

Figure 4.5 The relocation of the 2nd Battery, 9th Artillery Regiment’s observation post during the Upper Silesian operation (March 15–23, 1945) (1:100,000 scale) (drawn by E. Moniushko).

151


route “home” to the OP, I was thinking that both Vasia Kolechko and Tolia Frolov could also have shown off, but unfortunately Shutrik had not visited us even once. Gradually, the signs of the forthcoming offensive increased in number. “Our” infantry finally appeared, the rifle regiments of the 72nd Rifle Division. While it had received replacements, it was still not up to full strength and its new men were not fully trained. Many of the replacements had been recently drafted from the liberated areas of Western Ukraine, and some were Soviet citizens who had been driven away to the west by the Germans and had been working in the eastern regions of Poland. They did not possess the same combat skills as exhibited by the 1944 replacements from the Pskov and Novgorod regions, which had graduated from the “academy of partisan warfare.” There were several of these former Leningrad replacements in my platoon, named Mikhailov, Ivanov, and Skorogonov, all of whom were reliable and experienced soldiers. Gunner Kuznetsov, whom I just mentioned, was also one of them. The regiment’s officers were familiarized with the plan for the pending artillery bombardment, target allocation, and the order of fire. However, the actual date and time of firing were concealed under the designations “D” and “H.” The time of what subsequent histories of the Great Patriotic War call the Upper Silesian Operation was coming closer and closer. The actual reason the operation received that name is not clear to me. Perhaps this term was used simply to differentiate the operation from the Lower Silesian Operation, which we had just completed. The new operation, which began on March 15, was conducted on the territory of Oppelnskaia Silesia (in Polish, Opolskii Shlionsk), and is called Opolskaia Operation in Polish military–historical literature. Our forces had liberated Upper Silesia itself as far back as January 1945. Finally, during the night on March 14–15, somewhere to the right of us where the Grottkau-Neisse highway was located, we could hear the dull rumble of tank engines and tracks, which even in the dark our scouts recognized as coming from our T-34s. The tracks on these tanks consisted of many large links, and when each link touched the ground, it made a characteristic cracking sound under the pressure of the front roller wheels. The tanks had appeared. Soon it would begin! That same night, the battery commanders received the actual decoded time of “D-day” and “H-hour.” “D-day” was March 15. I do not remember the “H” time precisely, but I think it was 0700 hours, Moscow time. We would go over to the offensive under a new battalion commander. The former commander, Captain Ermolaev, had left us due to illness. Captain Konstantin Ivanovich Shliakhov was appointed in his stead. I met him for the first time only three days before the offensive began. Actually, 152


the meeting was unusual and somewhat comical. While leaving my platoon’s dugout with my greatcoat thrown over my shoulders, I unexpectedly stumbled into a lean young man dressed in an officer’s cap, box-calf boots, and cotton jacket without shoulder boards, but with a belt and a holster on top. He literally stunned me with the question, “Why aren’t you dressed according to the regulations?” In that situation, the reprimand seemed quite funny to me, but sensibly, I decided not to make trouble. Thirty-five years later, after meeting Konstantin Ivanovich, we remembered this story and laughed about it together. Later on, I saw his bravery, decisiveness, artillery knowledge, and high culture more than once. March 15 arrived. The time to commence artillery bombardment came. Incidentally, sometimes those writing on this topic confuse “H-hour” with the time the artillery bombardment began. However, they are not the same. According to the planning documents, “H-hour” is the time the attacking infantry was supposed to reach the first line of enemy trenches, that is, the forward positions of their defense. The artillery bombardment began much earlier. I cannot recall the exact time, but when we opened fire, the sunrise had barely begun, and it was still completely dark in the forest. During the very first salvos, the glow from the gunshots and explosions completely blinded our eyes. Darkness and light replaced each other with enormous frequency. The roar was such that you could hear neither speech nor yelling. It soon became impossible to observe the target destruction from the OP, since the constant explosions blended into an unbroken line of fire, dense smoke, uplifted soil, and various types of wreckage. Everything flew about and flashed. The explosions were landing about 300 to 400 meters from the OP. All of the non-essential personnel had already been pulled back about a 100 meters to the rear, toward the dugouts, just in case. But no one wanted to hide – they all trusted in the mastery of our artillerymen and equipment. Everyone wanted to see what was going on with his own eyes. Of course, you also had to beware of German responding fire, but we didn’t receive any in our sector. After the powerful initial bombardment, which continued for what seemed like ten minutes, the infantry reconnaissance detachments moved forward and found out that the Germans had abandoned their first line of defense, leaving only covering forces behind. That is why the 45-minute bombardment described by some authors, including the 4th Tank Army’s commander, General D.D. Leliushenko, in his memoir entitled Moscow–Stalingrad–Berlin–Prague (Moscow, Voenizdat, 1973, p. 316), did not actually occur. Our forces began to advance. Unfortunately, I waited until it was too late to write down what remained in my memory of that assault. I forgot a lot and have lost the connection between separate occurrences during that tense period. Of course, the German map that I kept does help. 153


Figure 4.6 The fighting for Gross-Briezen, March 15, 1945 (drawn by E. Moniushko).

But perhaps what I manage to remember and write down now will still convey some of my impressions of the March 1945 battles in the GrottkauNeisse sector. When we, the headquarters artillerymen, began to advance, at first we moved along the road to the right, along which a tank column was advancing through the forest. Apparently on Shliakhov’s orders, the battery commander, Metel’sky, was going to put us on the tanks. For some reason, however, the idea of riding on the tanks did not materialize. Instead, we began to march forward among and behind the infantry. At first, we tried to lay telephone line as we advanced, but we soon switched to radio and laid the wire only during our compulsory stops. Although the morning started out quite gloomy, during the day on March 15 it was sunny and warm. As we advanced, I vividly recall how difficult it was to run up some of the slopes. When we did so we were motivated by only one thought – reach the crest where the first soldiers were already lying prone as fast as possible and then to lie down with them to rest a little. But those on the crest were lying down not because of their exhaustion but because the “Fritzes” were snapping back at us with fire from the crest beyond. We pulled up short and immediately established communications with the battalion’s firing platoons. The battery commanders called for artillery fire. And once again, we headed further forward. Another picture stands before my eyes. It is a highway, which passes through a wide hollow from an area we had already captured to the south toward the Germans. Since it was very difficult for the infantry and their vehicles to move through the rain-soaked spring fields, everyone assembled 154


on that highway. Our group, which consisted of the battery commander, me, and the greater part of the headquarters platoon (some signalmen are already on the front lines and in the firing positions), gradually drifted toward the same highway together with the infantry we were supporting. In the hollow, at the lowest point along the highway, there was a small ruined bridge over a stream. Next to the bridge, someone had constructed a crossing out of its wreckage. Slipping and sliding in the mud, the infantry ran across the makeshift bridge, and a tank that had left the highway inched forward after them. The logs creaked and wriggled under the T-34’s tracks, but suddenly its tracks struck a mine lying on the ground. The explosion was about 30 meters away from us. Dead and wounded infantrymen fell all around, but the tank moved on. Now at a full run, we crossed the stream after the tank. Ahead of us, about 500–700 meters distant, was a small town to the left of the road. That was the town of Waldau. We could see a small bell tower rising over the houses. Several infantrymen had been shot down by single shots from the direction of Waldau. Everybody then fell to the ground and opened intense fire with their rifles and machine guns, although it is quite doubtful that anyone had time to see the sniper. There simply was not enough time for that, nor was the sniper that close either. Nevertheless, no one shot at us after this. Rather than killing the sniper, I think we just scared him away. The presence of the tank also helped. We passed the town of Waldau. Metel’sky was being very cautious and, although he kept our group close to the infantry, we did not form a common crowd. Instead, we walked several dozens of meters to the left side of the road. About 3 kilometers from Waldau, a narrow strip of apple orchard crossed our path. Still naked, of course, the apple trees were growing in straight rows. The orchard was bracketed on all sides by deep ditches filled with water. These ditches saved our lives. While we were crossing the orchard, a salvo from our own “Katiushas” descended on the orchard. We fell into the icy-cold water and hid in the ditch. Fortunately, none of us were hit. I do not know whether this was an accident or a preplanned strike against the German rear areas, but I do know that not everyone had received the signal about the shortening of the bombardment and the accelerated advance – we did not know about that either. It was the second day of the offensive, and our tankers were suffering heavy losses. Burned-out tanks with their turrets torn off by explosions remains etched in my memory, along with the charred bodies of their crewmen who were thrown out of the tanks by the explosion, or perhaps had managed to bail out before being mowed down by fire from German machine gunners. During the relatively “quiet” period after the fighting was over, I made pencil sketches of these images. Fortunately, some of them still remain. The town of Wintzenberg had just been cleared of Germans. The town 155


was made up of sparsely built houses with fenced gardens and sheds between them. Beyond the town was a field that stretched another 1 kilometers, and beyond the field was a line of trees between which we could see pointed tile roofs. That was the town of Gross-Briezen, and the Germans were there. The attempts by the tanks to break through to it were unsuccessful. Apparently, there were tanks or assault guns (SPGs) entrenched in the town. We set up an RBM radio set near the wall of a shed on the edge of “our” town of Wintzenberg. The artillery battalion commander, Shliakhov, then reported to someone “on top,” “We are fighting for GrossBriezen. The combat is heavy and the ‘boxes’ [tanks] are burning . . .” My spotters deployed their equipment and began searching for targets. Shliakhov entered the shed with one of the battalion’s officers. It seemed to him that it would be better to observe the action from the holes and cracks in the shed’s wall. At that very moment, a shell fired from the edge of Gross-Briezen pierced both of the shed’s brick walls and with a squealing sound flew on toward our rear. Shliakhov and the officer with him jumped out of the shed, swearing furiously. Both were bruised and their tunics red with brick dust. Fortunately, however, the shell turned out to be a dud. We responded by firing an artillery bombardment against GrossBriezen with all three of the battalion’s batteries. Along with the infantry and the armor, we bypassed Gross-Briezen from the north and reached the Grottkau-Neisse highway. The town of Friedewalde stretched out in a long strip across the highway going south. We passed through the western part of that town, and we captured Mogwitz late on March 17, the end of the third day of fighting. Unlike Friedewalde, the town of Mogwitz stretched out in a strip along the highway rather than across it, but most of the town was to the left of the road. A large number of units, including artillery, infantry, and even tankers, had placed their OPs in the attics of two or three houses in the southern outskirts of Mogwitz, facing toward the enemy. It seemed more like an open-air market than an OP. Vasilii Kolechko was loudly indignant that no one was observing the basic rules of camouflage, but neither he nor I could do anything about it. I was only a junior lieutenant and shoulder boards with up to two stripes (major to colonel) were quite common there. I still vividly recall two incidents that took place on the morning of March 18. At that time, the “Fritzes” were still holding on to the village of Bozdorf, which was about 1 kilometers to the south. Our infantry had not yet advanced further than the southern edge of Mogwitz. Suddenly a truck appeared heading along the highway from our rear. Ten-to-twelve people were standing in the back of the truck and, judging from their caps, many of them were officers. Since the truck was driving fast, everyone was too surprised to stop it in Mogwitz. It drove right by the last houses where our observation posts were located. Then we began shooting at the truck from 156


behind. Finally those in the truck understood, and they started braking and turned back. The “Fritzes” also opened fire, but they were too late. We were still discussing what had just occurred, no more than half-anhour later, when a German passenger command car – a “Fritz Willys,” as Kolechko put it, appeared, driving fast toward us. Once again, we hesitated in surprise, but then ran downstairs, grabbing our weapons as we ran. However, someone from the infantry had already fired a burst. The light all-terrain vehicle flew into a ditch alongside the road. Although we captured the driver intact and alive, the officer riding in the car had been killed on the spot. We learned from the driver that the officer had been sent by headquarters to restore order among the retreating units. However, he thought that the fighting was going on along the approaches to Friedewalde, that is, 3–5 kilometers to the north. This often happens when the situation reports are either late or outstripped by events. D.D. Leliushenko’s book provides at least a partial explanation as to why this incident with the truck occurred. Leliushenko points out that the tankers of his tank army liberated the village of Stefansdorf, which was far to the south and west of Mogwitz, on March 17. Perhaps our comrades knew about this and believed that this entire region was free of Germans. In reality, however, a “layer-cake” situation existed at that time, with German and Red Army positions overlapping one another. Our advance slowed appreciably along this line. To establish better communications with our infantry, we decided to deploy a FOP once again, and Kolechko, Skorogonov, and another radio operator went along with me to set up the FOP. Once again, the call sign “Valley-1” and other familiar call signs sounded out along the lines laid by the tireless signalmen. By this time, our infantry had reached positions around a small solitary house to the left of the Grottkau-Neisse highway, somewhat to the south of the small village of Hannsdorf. We set up our FOP in that house. For some reason, we concluded that the house belonged to a road supervisor. A sparse line of hastily entrenched infantrymen stretched off to the left from the house’s walls, and a short distance to the right, where the line intersected the highway. Everything within range could be literally swept by fire from infantry and other weapons, which could be delivered through the house’s windows, whose frames had been knocked out, and through holes in the walls. I recall that the door separating the room from the kitchen had a circular hole cut through it by armor-piercing shells; it looked as if it had been cut with a compass. We established our communications and then deployed the periscope for observation. The commander of the nearby rifle company crawled in to visit us and said that he had no more than 30 soldiers to man a sector of about half a kilometer. After reporting on the situation and the OP’s location to the battery 157


commander, he ordered us to continue our observation and wait for further instructions. We stayed there for two days, during which I recall several incidents. On one of the days, three tankers dressed in black coveralls and ribbed tank helmets made their way from the rear side of the house. Although they said that they had come to take a look at the road, they paid no attention to our warnings about the various dangers, and they even responded rather rudely to our offer to let them use our periscope. One of them climbed up the staircase from the basement, right near where the shell had pierced the door, stood up, and immediately fell into our and his comrades’ arms. A bullet had pierced him right through his chest. The tankers crawled away dragging their comrade along with them. He had either lost consciousness or was dead. On the evening of the same day, our artillerymen began their target registration. Since by now we had plugged our phone into the general battalion network, all of the commands reached us. The telephone operator, Skorogonov, told me that Malyshev, the commander of the 3rd Battery, had given the order, “Trench” to the firing positions of the howitzer battery. I picked up the receiver and only heard the response from the firing positions, “Trench, fire!” After returning the receiver to its cradle, I went to the periscope to find out where they were firing, but fortunately, I did not get up. A loud roar rang out, bricks rained down on my head, and a large hole suddenly appeared in the back wall of our building. I grabbed the receiver again and heard Malyshev’s satisfied voice: “Write it down! Registration target #1,” he shouted. Immediately, I let him know exactly how I felt about his new “enemy” target. Thus, it turned out that, as well as high and distant superiors, even battery commanders did not pay sufficient attention to information about the location of their own FOPs. It turned out that everyone thought that this area was still controlled by the Germans. However, it was fortunate that they limited themselves to only target registration, and did not fire a full battalion bombardment. So yes, Tvardovsky [A. Tvardovsky, a famous Soviet poet and war correspondent] was right when he wrote, “It so happens in war, father, that our own get hit.” Incidentally, later on, during officer training after war’s end when we discussed our wartime experiences, our topographer Vakulenko, who probably had a hand in determining the coordinates of this “registration target,” began using the expression, “Where Moniushko was sacrificed,” whenever he referred specifically to our FOP south of Hannsdorf. On the evening of the very same day when we almost fell victim to the mastery of our artillerymen, for some reason the “Fritzes” decided to set our house on fire. Perhaps they needed light for their maneuvering or they were afraid of a night attack or, after all, they might not have realized the might of 30 men defending a half-kilometer of front. Be that as it may, 158


they began firing incendiary rounds at the house, and, by doing so, they set fire to various things in the attic. The commander of the rifle company we were supporting decided that we could not permit the “Fritzes” to have their light. He ran upstairs in the darkness lit by the starting fire with Kolechko and I following him. We then grabbed the burning desks, chairs, mattresses, and rags, and threw them out of the house through the windows and shell holes. We did, however, have difficulty with a large wardrobe. While the three of us were wrapping our arms around it and dragging it to a breach in the wall, several bullets struck it between our arms, and immediately set the wardrobe’s dry boards on fire. So we pushed that burning torch out of the window. Realizing that they would not be able to set the house’s brick walls on fire, the “Fritzes” finally quietened down. Only after we came down from the attic, did we understand how lucky we had been. Overnight on March 21 and 22, they transferred us to the right into the sector of the village of Stefansdorf. First we had to pull back about 3 kilometers, then move the same distance to the west, and finally advance forward again to the south. The preceding battles had worn us out so much that we were literally sleeping while on the move. Following the example of the infantrymen marching alongside us, each of us placed a hand on the shoulder of the comrade in front. If the leading soldier didn’t fall asleep, up to ten comrades followed behind him with their eyes closed. We walked in the dark, and we could determine our general direction only by the weak glow given off by overhead flares. After the sun rose, they mounted us on tanks, and we rode for several kilometers on the decks of the tanks. This left an unpleasant impression on me. Certainly I had been fired upon when marching in formation. But in that case, you could at least hear the shots. In this case, however, you could hear nothing but the roar of the engines and the grinding of the tanks’ tracks. When being fired upon, all you could see were the sparks made by bullets striking the metal armor. However, they did warn us that we should sit on the left side of the tank and preferably behind its turret. Apparently, we drove right through the right flank of the breakthrough sector. We spent the last night before the assault on the city of Neisse in a huge bunker together with the assembled infantrymen. A truck could drive through the bunker’s immense gates. No fewer than 100 men were in that bunker, huddled under a brick ceiling covered on top with earth. By dawn our battery took up firing positions in a hollow created by the intersection of two roads. One of these, which rested on top of an embankment, was possibly a railroad. Metel’sky’s observation post was also right next to the firing positions, situated on a high embankment from which it could observe the northern part of the city. 159


Figure 4.7 “Go there, I don’t know where . . .” (drawn by E. Moniushko).

I arrived at the OP with a portion of the platoon right after the “Fritzes” had just finished bombarding the battery. In addition to the shell craters between the guns, I saw a heavily damaged Dodge threequarter ton truck, whose tires were punctured and which had a jagged hole in one of its engine’s cylinders. Nevertheless, somehow the engine worked, and we loaded the wounded into the truck. Masha, the battery’s medic, was still bandaging the last of the wounded in the shelter, which was a concrete culvert under the embankment. Soon the Dodge crawled away toward the division’s medical battalion in the rear, audibly rumbling along the road on its flattened tires. I remember that Mironov, the commander of one of the guns, who had been a tractor driver in civilian life, was behind the wheel. The truck’s regular driver turned out to be among the wounded. The infantrymen were already breaking into Neisse city, and Lesha Bulatov drove the guns forward, one by one, in his “new” Dodge truck. 160


Since this process involved making four trips along a highway that was being fired upon from the right, it was far too risky to do the job with a bulky Studebaker truck. When we entered the city, the battery commander pulled my platoon apart to form gun crews because, first of all, the gun crews had suffered some casualties, and second, because we had no specialized work to do during the street fighting. He entrusted one of Shutrik’s guns to me. We reached the center of Neisse and the Neisse River at dusk. There was a small square with a lawn in the middle of the city’s center. Several narrow streets led from the square like rays of light from a star, and the rays were compressed between gloomy and dark three-or-four-story buildings. There was a bridge over the river close to the left side of the square. The bridge was a concrete one with a single span. To the left and right, at the entrance to the bridge, there was a parapet about 1 meter high constructed from stone and concrete. As darkness descended, we could see some industrial building to the left of the bridge on the river’s opposite right bank, and a church was off to the right. I noted all of this for myself, while I was hiding with others in the narrow streets leading to the square. The infantry with their commanders were there, and I was also there with my gun. The battery commander then ordered me to bring the gun out to the bridge and prevent any Germans from blowing it up. We both hoped that the “Fritzes” hadn’t yet mined it. We decided to occupy in a position quite near the parapet but to the right of the post. The parapet’s short wall would protect us against any fire from the other side of the river. No sooner had we raced toward the bridge with our gun in tow and barely managed to unlimber it, when we heard a dull thud, something flashed under the bridge, and the bridge’s far end collapsed into the right bank of the river. Apparently, the “Fritzes’ ” nerves had given way. They should have waited until we had begun our crossing. Instead of forcing the river at that spot, we waited until the next morning. In the meantime, we pulled the gun back a little into one of the streets running off the square. Soon the tanks and self-propelled guns arrived. One opened fire over our heads, deafening everyone. While turning around, another tank struck and broke our gun’s mount. Considerable yelling and swearing followed. When dawn finally arrived, it turned out that the “Fritzes” had retreated from the right bank during the night. By that time, our forces had already forced the river downstream, and our rifle divisions were already making their way well into the “Fritzes’ ” rear area. The city of Neisse burst into flames late in the evening on March 23. There were practically no people remaining in the city and the houses stood empty. Apparently, things had been set on fire in the midst of the battle by a stray bullet or a shell, and now there was no one left to put the 161


fires out. Therefore, with no one available to extinguish them, the fires merged into an unbroken mass of flames. Entire blocks of streets were on fire, scorching us with the intense heat. Tiles constantly bursting from the heat sounded louder than small arms or automatic weapons fire, and shards from the tiles flew in all directions, in the process wounding several soldiers. Nevertheless, fire is fire, and war is war. After rushing through the burning streets with great difficulty in the morning, we towed our gun to the northwestern edge of the city. There we were ordered to take up defensive positions in the event of a possible enemy counterstrike against our flank from the Ottmacau region, which the “Fritzes” were still stoutly defending. We dug in about 100 meters from the last buildings on the outskirts of the city along the eastern side of the same highway along which we had entered the city the day before. We dug foxholes, covered them with doors brought out from the ruined buildings, and heaped dirt on top of the doors. We camouflaged our gun, and the soldiers settled down for a rest, exploiting the fact that our position was not visible to the enemy from the side since it was located on the opposite side of a gently sloping hill. While driving by in a “Willys,” some commander noticed my guys lying all round, and demanded an explanation. When I finally showed him the camouflaged gun, he was most embarrassed because he hadn’t seen it. He abruptly left. The guys were laughing – the commander could detect a soldier without a tunic from a kilometer away, but he couldn’t see a gun only ten steps from him. Together with our dinner, we also received an order to send men to a bathhouse one by one. I split the crew into two parts, and I went along to the bathhouse with the second group. Our battery Sergeant Major Zherdev set up the bathhouse in one of the first-floor rooms of a large building, which had once been a barracks and had recently served the “Fritzes” as a hospital. I could not describe the scene better than Tvardovsky did in his 1946 novel entitled Terkin!, a novel which every reader should read. I walked through the hospital’s second floor. There was a signaling mechanism that looked like a semaphore in the hall by the entrance to each room. If someone needed to call the medics into the room, they simply pulled on a string, and the semaphore’s “arm” immediately assumed a horizontal position that could be seen from any point in the hall. In the same building, the soldiers found a whole tarpaulin sack containing decorations – “crosses” of some order, and they were now lying around underfoot both inside and outside the building. While most of these decorations were large, black ones with a swastika in the center, there were also smaller ones with light rays and the inscription, “For faithful service” (“Fur treue Dienst”). 162


By the evening, when the situation on the right flank became clearer and more stable, we withdrew the gun from this position, and I was ordered by Metel’sky to return to my platoon. We spent another day at another place located on gently sloping hills covered by a sparse forest on the northwestern outskirts of the city, where we rested and put ourselves into order. In the depression between the hills, there was a lake, which had formed when the Germans opened the locks of the dam in Ottmachau. A duck appeared in the lake from somewhere, and the soldiers were having fun trying to shoot it, but I think unsuccessfully. On the night of March 26, we received an urgent order requiring us to assemble and march somewhere to the north, this time on board trucks. Here I should say a few kind words about our drivers and their trucks. Perhaps I will not remember everyone, or perhaps I will name someone who was in another battery. However, I do not think that this is important. And this is not at all surprising. After all, our encounters with these drivers was infrequent, and more than 40 years have passed since that time. The drivers I best recall were named Bykov, Shamshin, Vydrin, Pavchenko, and Bulatov. The latter, Bulatov, was the youngest, although even he had amassed more than two years of driving experience working along the Lake Ladoga’s “Road of Life.” While assigned to our unit, he always drove a Dodge three-quarter-ton truck, which although small in size, was a powerful vehicle. Because of its low profile, we always used it in the most dangerous sectors. He drove dashingly, and for this reason, as I already mentioned, he and his truck were among those who distinguished themselves the most during the assault on the city of Neisse. The oldest driver with pre-war driving experience was Pavchenko. I got to know him better after the war, during our transfer from Czechoslovakia to Hungary. At that time, Pavchenko was behind the wheel, and I was the truck commander. The remaining three drivers were approximately the same age, it seems to me about 30 years old. All of them loved to drive fast, which sometimes led to amusing misunderstandings. For example, Shutrik’s orderly, a soldier named Abul’khanov, was a semi-literate or perhaps even a completely illiterate Kazakh. Loyal to his national customs, he always sat with his legs tucked under him. On one occasion, when he was riding in the truck’s passenger seat, the driver, who was named Vydrin, braked quite hard before some obstacle in the road. Abul’khanov immediately fell forward and struck his head on the truck’s dashboard. Although he burst out swearing in his own language for some time, we could only make out the last name of the guilty party, whom, for some reason he constantly referred to as “Vydrin’kin” rather than his correct name, “Vydrin.” He also uttered such oaths as, “My blood is boiling over.” Nevertheless, even that accident did not make him abandon his Kazakh “posture” while seated in a car seat. 163


During a night march from the city of Neisse, at a time when the road was crammed with our troops, the same Vydrin decided to exploit his truck’s excellent speed and cross-country ability (at this time, he was driving a Dodge truck, which was referred to in solders’ jargon as a “dozhdik” [“rain”]), to pass the massive column. He did so not even on the shoulder of the road, but instead through the yards of an abandoned village. While doing so, the truck, with all four of its wheels spinning wildly, flew into a completely filled silage pit that was undetectable in the darkness. The truck’s wheels sank completely into the muck. So as not to hold up the column, Vydrin declined any assistance. I still do not know how he managed to get his “steed” out of this hole. However, after he caught with us at the end of our route the next morning, he spent hours cleaning off the covering of “sauerkraut” from every nook and cranny of his truck. I associate the driver named Bykov with an event that almost ended up tragically for me, although I must admit that he was not to blame for it. However, I will describe this incident later. Bykov usually drove a Chevrolet truck, whose cargo bay carried Sergeant Major Zherdev’s entire “shop.” For that reason, when we were conducting marches, Bykhov’s truck also towed the battery’s trophy battery, which I already mentioned earlier. It towed the field kitchen by a rope tied to the muzzle brake of the gun towed by Bykov’s truck. However, in addition to the discomforts caused by towing such an elaborate “train,” Bykov was also obviously irritated by the rattle of metal-covered wheels and the associated ridicule heaped on him from all sides for his gypsy-like cargo. While we were approaching our new firing positions after our march from Neisse city, the battery column lost its way, or perhaps the route turned out to be the incorrect one. In any case, as we were passing through a section of the road that was in close proximity to the “Fritzes,” we were struck by small arms fire. Fortunately, there was brush growing along the side of the road, which, while preventing the “Fritzes” from taking good aim, did not prevent a powerful truck from making a sharp U-turn. Besides, at the head of the column was a Dodge truck without a trailer, which turned around almost on a dime, as only a Dodge truck could. Meanwhile, with its long “tail,” Bykhov’s truck was turning and swaying and bouncing along over roadside ditches, when someone suddenly cut the tow-rope with a knife. However, the field kitchen remained on the road. While Bykov was happy, he was not happy for very long. On the battery commander’s order, the sergeant major assembled a group of soldiers, and, with Lesha Bulatov’s help, they pulled out our abandoned property. Getting ahead of myself somewhat, I must add parenthetically that this ancient carriage’s last day came at the beginning of the Prague operation. When driving to our initial positions, Bykov hit a large rock with the field kitchen so “fortuitously,” that all of the spokes on the kitchen’s wheels 164


Figure 4.8 A battery observation post at Marksdorf during April 1945 (drawn by E. Moniushko).

burst out in all directions. We then managed without the field kitchen throughout the last few remaining days of the war, although the sergeant major did salvage the boiler and carried it in the back of the truck. But let’s return to the actual sequence of events. After returning from the city of Neisse back to the area of Hill 718.0 (at Zobtenberg), which was so familiar to us, we changed positions two or three times during the next few days, and, finally, occupied defensive positions for quite some time during the first few days of April 1945. During this period, the battery’s OP was located in Marksdorf, and its firing positions were situated facing south between Wernersdorf and Gross-Monau. We pulled our guns back to a base [distance] of about 5 kilometers to the rear. At this time, we were located outside of the encircled German city of Breslau. Somewhere behind our backs we could hear and see the repeated assaults on the city, the glow of exploding shells and fires during the night, the incessant drone of attacking aircraft, and the dull thunder of artillery fire. Ahead of us stood the dark cone formed by Hill 718.0, which was noticeable against the background even in the night sky. Marksdorf was a small village with two rows of houses alongside the highway leading to the town of Zobten, which was located 4 kilometers to the southeast and was still occupied by the “Fritzes.” There was a beautiful estate situated on the northern edge of Marksdorf, with a large 165

Figure 4.9 The area of operations of the 2nd Battery, 9th Artillery Regiment in April and early May 1945 (1:50,000 scale) (drawn by E. Moniushko).

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two-story house and a garden, both enclosed by a patterned and inlaid brick wall. Our forward positions passed through the southwestern edge of the village at the same level as these houses. Beyond was a 50-to-100meter-wide no-man’s-land, which separated the village from a small forest still held by the “Fritzes.” Their first trench line was located on the very edge of the forest. The battalion headquarters and the battalion commander’s OP had been set up on the grounds of this estate. That is where the 3rd Battery’s OP was also located. Gavrilenko’s 1st Battery was somewhere to the left, as far as I remember, not in Marksdorf proper, but instead in dugouts right in the field. Metel’sky and I occupied a house almost in the center of the village and on the right side of the highway, closest to the enemy. I must note, of course, that these locations were dictated by the location of the rifle units the artillery units were attached to or supporting rather than the wishes of the battery commanders themselves. That is why Gavrilenko’s OP ended up being outside the estate. We managed to settle in with considerable comfort. For example, we walled in the windows of one of the rooms on the first floor of the twostory house, which looked out on the rear, with bricks, and then we brought in furniture so that the soldiers not on duty could take a rest. We set our OP up in the attic, and we installed the periscope to a special hook we screwed into a wooden beam that connected the rafters, instead of a tripod, which was our usual practice. The periscope’s lens viewed the world through the holes in the tiled roof. At first I was apprehensive that the change in the tile pattern would reveal our new OP, but, after examining it from the side of our house and all of the surrounding houses, I realized that every roof had so many tiles broken by bullets and shell fragments, that our lenses would be lost among all that damage. We had taken care to choose the attic for our OP because we had the feeling that we were going to be settled here for a long time. Unlike most other houses, the brick walls in our “estate” did not end at ceiling level. Instead, they continued further up for more than a meter to about the level of a man’s chest. Therefore, a person sitting at the periscope was well protected against any stray bullet. This was significant if you take into account the fact that it was less than 100 meters from our OP to the nearest point in the “Fritzes’ ” trench. However, since even that protection did not seem enough for us, we brought in sacks of grain from the nearest sheds and laid them all around the observer’s cell. Now we weren’t afraid of even a shell striking the roof. Metel’sky even took care of protecting the OP against a possible German sally [raid] by covering it with fire from our battery. In addition, we prepared to conduct fixed defensive fires (NZO) along the edge of the nearby forest. As prescribed by our artillery regulations, one Russian letter, NZO “G,” designated this protective fire. This letter was not chosen 167

Figure 4.10 An observer correcting artillery fire from a forward observation post (photograph from E. Moniushko’s private collection).

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by accident. We and Shutrik, who was situated at the battery’s firing positions, both called this protective fire, NZO “Grob” (meaning “Coffin”). As our calculations indicated, you could fire at a target in such close proximity to our OP and over our heads only by using our ZIS-3 rounds with reduced-charge ammunition for the 76 mm regimental guns. However, if we had used normal ammunition, the trajectory became so flat that the shells would have struck the roofs of the houses in Marksdorf. That is why we had conducted an NZO range finding. And afterwards, during the time we spent on that OP, and on nights during which the situation was unclear, the battery fired NZO “Grob” concentrations on two or three occasions. However, even though we realized that everything had been calculated and tested, and despite the fact that we trusted the work of our artillerymen, you really felt quite uncomfortable while the shells were whistling so low overhead. So that they could open fire immediately after receiving the “Grob” signal, if they were not firing at another target, the battery’s guns were constantly aimed in accordance with the targeting data for that NZO concentration, and reduced-charge ammunition was set aside separately and at the ready in order to avoid any mistakes. Although a telephone line to the observer in the attic was laid, the observer himself was to serve also as the telephone operator. However, in the living quarters, which were downstairs, telephone operators were constantly on duty. We did not conduct any actual observation from the attic at night because, in the dark, everything was silhouetted against the sky and was more visible from ground level. That is why we went to the infantry trenches during the night, where we listened and observed the locations from which the “Fritzes” were launching flares. While sparse in number, the infantrymen in the trenches also had few automatic weapons. Instead, most of them were armed only with carbines. That is why the company commander asked us to go down to the trenches and conduct disruptive fire from our submachine guns during the nighttime. We would fire two magazines at one location and then move to another one, while loading our magazines on the move with ammunition from the pockets in our greatcoat. Sometimes the “Fritzes” would blindly fire a panzerfaust [anti-tank rocket] in response. Our infantry would respond by throwing F-1 hand grenades, sometimes even climbing further out of the trench in the dark in order to throw the grenades farther. Sometimes, during the night we “rented” a 45 mm anti-tank gun from the infantry, rolled it manually out onto the highway, as far as possible from our camouflaged firing positions, and fired a dozen rounds blindly so that the “Fritzes” would not be able to sleep well. In the daylight, however, such liberties could not be permitted. You could reach the house where our OP was located only in the dark, despite the fact that a communication trench ran right up to its doorstep. 169


However, doing this carelessly could cost you dearly. While artillerymen were probably more careful and attentive when it came to their camouflage, more than once German snipers fired on the infantrymen and even their officers. During April, ten graves appeared behind the fence of the estate, and, as a rule, rather than dying from a mortal direct hit, soldiers died from wounds that at first seemed minor, but after several hours proved fatal. We suspected that the German were firing poisoned bullets. Nevertheless, the “Fritzes” were not good shots. One day in April, for example, we reached that conclusion based on Kostia Shalaev’s experience. Not long before, Kostia’s radio had been struck and, being without a radio, he was temporarily attached to the battery’s sergeant major, who told him to deliver a thermos filled with food to the battery’s OP. The sun was already rising, and a German sniper chased Kostia around for more than an hour in an open spot in a field to the north of Marksdorf. Kostia was saved by the knowledge he had received while attending a snipers’ school when he was serving in the Leningrad Front: he knew that a sniper determined his sight beforehand in accordance with specific terrain features. By avoiding such spots, he managed to deceive the unskilled sniper and escaped unharmed, even though the thermos he was carrying was full of holes. After they assigned us our next mission, which was to provide reliable protection for the forces assaulting Wroclaw (Breslau) against a German relief attempt, they immediately placed severe restrictions on the amount of ammunition our artillery regiment could expend. They allocated no fewer than 1.5 combat loads of ammunition at the battery’s firing positions and around its tractors (a full combat load for our ZIS-3 guns was about 150 rounds). However, if the enemy was not active, we were permitted to expend only two rounds per day. After several days of saving ammunition, this was enough to conduct only rare target registrations, and to check our registration during changing meteorological conditions. However, the soldiers manning the howitzer received even less. During this period, the battery commander began leaving the OP more and more frequently, going either to the battalion headquarters or to the firing positions, where meetings were conducted, or to officers’ training sessions. He usually returned to the OP after dark. The other scouts and I took turns sitting at the periscope, studying everything in our field of view and noting everything new that appeared. By comparing the map with the terrain, we marked all of the characteristic locations and reference points, which, in the event that targets actually appeared, would determine their exact coordinates. The village of Strebel, which was located less than 1 kilometers from our location, was in ruins, probably because our aircraft had bombed a nearby railroad station. For a long time, we were not able to locate the railroad station building, which was marked on our map and could have 170


Figure 4.11 Red Army anti-tank troops and gun entering a German town (photograph from E. Moniushko’s private collection).

served as a reliable reference point, among the ruins. Finally, one day we noticed the letters “ST,” and only half of the remaining second letter on the triangular-shaped brick “teeth” remains of a collapsed wall. I remembered from my German classes at school that the letter “S” at the beginning of a word and before the “t” and “r” should have been read as “SH.” It suddenly became clear that these were the station’s remains with only two letters of the name “Strebel” visible among the ruins. We made similar finds almost every day. Unfortunately, since the battery’s reconnaissance journal has not been preserved, many of these things are now forgotten. Another example comes to mind. On a sunny day, we could observe a winding red stripe in the field between the station’s ruins and the edge of the forest closest to us. Upon closer scrutiny, this stripe turned out to be a German telephone cable with plastic insulation around it shining in the sunlight. In the springtime, the grass around it was not yet fully grown. After several minutes, when the sun began moving across the sky, the reflection visibly dimmed. Always inventive, Vasia Kolechko proposed firing several rounds at that sector so as to break the line and then note from which direction the German signalmen would come to repair the line. Although Vasia’s idea was not half bad, the harsh limit on ammunition expenditures did not permit us to act on it. All of our attempts to make a deal with mortar people didn’t work either, even though they had sufficient ammunition. Apparently, they did not want to needlessly reveal their positions. 171


Figure 4.12 A German Tiger tank destroyed by a Red Army self-propelled gun (photograph from E. Moniushko’s private collection).

Of course, this idea did not just appear be chance. Kolechko always carefully observed each and every sector where our shells had just exploded – if only to see whether “Fritz” telephone operators would appear there. And, of course, our telephone operators also memorized this fact. It turned out that you had to take special care when using trophy cable in places which the enemy could observe. Because of this daily observation, we literally knew the faces of many of the Germans who appeared in the first trench line. This was possible because the trench was only 100 meters away and our periscope had a 10⫻ magnification. On one occasion, shortly after we had seen some bigwig escorted by several officers through a communication trench, we tried to organize a sniper hunt of our own since we were not able to expend even a dozen shells. Of course, it would not have been very smart to shoot at the “Fritzes” directly from the OP, since this would have given away our location. Therefore, we chose a position in a semi-destroyed house nearby and laid a phone line to the ruins. The observer from “Valley-1” was supposed to warn the soldier sitting in the ambush site when and if a “worthy” target appeared. After receiving Metel’sky’s permission, I spent two days there with a rifle as well. Alas, the visits from the German command, which had prompted us to organize the hunt, were not often repeated. After a couple more days, new events made us abandon our stealthy watch. In the middle of April, a warning came from “upstairs” about possible 172


German actions on April 19 or 20, which was Hitler’s birthday. We were even afraid the “Fritzes” would employ chemical weapons. Therefore, we paid far closer attention to everything we noticed. Nevertheless, we did not notice anything that was suspicious, and there were no signs that the opposing forces were replacing any of their troops either. For example, from a distance of about 700 meters, we regularly observed how a German carrying food forward regularly made his way to the forward positions. We called him “total Fritz,” since, while getting out of the shallow and waisthigh communication trench with a thermos on his back, every single time he made several unsuccessful attempts, fell down, and finally removed the thermos, put it on the breastwork, and climbed out by himself before retrieving the thermos. His repeated appearances informed us, first of all, that there were only a small number of “Fritzes” in that sector (thus, only one thermos), and, second, about the nature of the unit facing our OP (a new unit would have had a new and different soldier deliver the food). I included these observations and conclusion in my daily written intelligence reports to our battalion’s chief of intelligence, Senior Lieutenant Aleksandr Romanov. Nevertheless, the “Fritzes” did have a surprise in store for us in honor of their “birthday boy” Führer, although the surprise did not cause us much harm. When it dawned on that particular day, we saw that the “Fritzes” had erected poles with flags and posters in their forward positions (although, only in the left portion of our sector, where the no-man’s-land was much wider), as well as in the nearest depths. Multiple large red and brown banners with a white circle and a black swastika in the center of each barely fluttered in the light wind and showed bright in the sunlight. We could see no fewer than ten such flags from our OP. A tense silence reigned supreme on both sides until about midday. We were waiting for some sort of attack, while the “Fritzes” were waiting for our reaction to their “flag-waving” challenge. And they got it! On the basis of an order that, apparently, had come down from division or corps level, suddenly simultaneous fire erupted from all of our infantry weapons. The 45 mm anti-tank and 76 mm regimental guns barked loudly, the mortars rumbled, heavy and light machine guns chattered, and submachine guns crackled. We also joined in the fun with all that noise. The fire was so intense and dense that, after several minutes, all of the “Fritzes’” decorations were literally cut down and shredded into pieces. Then, just as abruptly, everything quietened down. While the “Fritzes’ ” “initiative” ended on that note, we decided to decorate Marksdorf, which, incidentally, bore a revolutionary name [associated with Karl Marx], in an analogous fashion for the May 1 “May Day” holiday. Of course, the only source of red fabric to make the necessary flags had to be German mattresses, but it was possible to find ones that 173


were still unused in some of the houses at the edges of the village. All materials from the other so-called “rear area” buildings in the village had already been used up for other household needs. Vasia Kolechko and I took part in this work, although we almost paid for it by being fired at by a German sniper, who, fortunately, once again demonstrated his acute lack of skill. First, he missed completely, although he did manage to chase us behind a thick brick pole, which had once supported a gate but provided us with cover. Then, having coordinated our movements beforehand, we simultaneously burst forth running in different directions, surprising the sniper to such an extent that he fired a shot right in between us. We did, however, manage to get the material for the flags. The story that I promised to relate regarding our driver Bykhov occurred there, in the village of Marksdorf. Exploiting a period of calm in late April, the regiment commander assembled his officers for some reason or other at the regimental command post, which was located in the town of Rogau-Rosenau. As usual, we had to return “home” from the meeting to our OP by walking 6–7 kilometers in the dark. On this occasion, however, the battalion commander summoned up a car to carry the officers most of the way to Marksdorf. Although the highway running from Wernersdorf through Kiffendorf to Marksdorf was an excellent one, no one either drove or walked along it during the day-time. For example, that was where the thermos on Kostia Shalaev’s back was shot through, as I have already described. The command group chose Bykov’s Chevrolet as our vehicle since the Studebaker was too large and we would be too cramped in the Dodge. Shliakhov got into the vehicle’s passenger seat; Metel’sky, Malyshev, Gavrilenko, and someone else sat down in the benches in the back and along the sides, and Romanov and I stood near the truck’s cab. With Bykhov at the wheel and its tank full of gas, the truck “crawled” out onto the highway without its headlights into the total darkness. Suddenly, I felt a blow against the bridge of my nose and, almost immediately thereafter, a second blow to the back of my head. When I came to after losing consciousness for a short while, the truck had already stopped. It turned out that a communications line had been hung just above the road surface. The telephone operator, who had strung the line and was absolutely certain that no one would either drive or walk along the road, had failed to take the wire’s height into account. As a result, Romanov and I hit that communications wire. Although the wire caught me by the nose and flung me backward, I can’t say what happened to Romanov. He probably got less, perhaps just a glancing blow. But I flew backward and hit the back wall of the truck with the back of my head. In addition to my scratched face and a bruise on the back of the head, I also lost my hat. It was useless to search for it along the road in the dark, and it was too dangerous to put the headlights on. 174


After that incident, no one wanted to drive the rest of the way. It was fortunate than no more than 1 kilometers remained to Marksdorf. Bykov slowly turned his truck around and started back, while the rest of us began our evening stroll. Happily, the weather was warm, although I still needed a hat if only so that Shliakhov would not reprimand me for violating the dress code. Two days later we received our summer uniforms, and with it new pilot caps. Having mentioned my uniform, perhaps this is a good place to write several words about the quality of military life during that period. Obviously, since I cannot claim any real knowledge of the general military situation, I will limit my description of things from the perspective of our regiment and rifle division. First, until the very end of the war, junior officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates received and wore the same uniform, which included soldier’s greatcoats with hooks instead of buttons, tarpaulin [canvas] boots, which, contrary to the common opinion, were not at all heavy, but were in fact lighter than the regular leather boots. However, the boot tops quickly became frayed at the creases and by the second month, if not earlier, started letting the water in. Many soldiers wore shoulder boards, with homemade stars on the officers’ shoulder boards, hats, and pilot caps. Skilled men usually cut these stars and other emblems from tin that came from cans of American pork [tushonka] sent to us from the “second front.” They then sowed these stars and emblems onto the uniforms with simple threads. Those who were more skilled with a needle often embroidered the stars on their shoulder boards with white thread. However, with use, the white thread soon became indistinguishable in color from the shoulder boards. Few soldiers wore their peaked caps close to the forward positions. We all lived in the same general conditions as one family, and the officers, noncommissioned officers, and privates alike literally ate from the same mess tin, drank from the same flask, and covered ourselves with the same greatcoat, although in pairs, using the second one as a common bed. And our exterior differences, which were not very great, were visible only up close. That closeness, which was dictated by our comradeship-in-arms, also completely corresponded to the requirements of camouflage and personal security. This was the reason why, when new uniforms were issued to the officers, in 1945, talk began circulating about the increased combat losses among officers. This speculation was prompted by the final wartime issue of uniforms within our division, and perhaps other divisions as well, when they issued officers new trousers and tunics made from a light, silky, and sand colored fabric, which differed sharply from the usual khaki cotton fabric uniforms received by the non-commissioned officers and privates. Although I cannot confirm this speculation with specific facts, I do think it was likely. 175


Figure 4.13 Red Army artillery in its firing position (photograph from E. Moniushko’s private collection).

When it came to food, during the last period of the war we lived primarily off trophy [captured] foodstuffs. Even the bread differed significantly all of the time. Sometimes it was dark, sometimes white, and either coarse ground or fine ground, depending on what was present in trophy stockpiles and bases. Sometimes we received dried bread, but the normal type rather than the devilish invention called “dried dough” that I encountered at the home front food distribution points. They justified its horrid appearance by claiming that this semi-solid form prevented it from crumbling and breaking up in the soldier’s knapsack. I can personally attest to the fact that this form of bread would not crumble even if you carried the knapsack containing the “dried dough” throughout the entire extent of Europe. It was simply not possible to break up, bite, or even chew such boulders. Perhaps you could suck on it, but even then it did not fit in your mouth. Even today, I want to find out who came up with such an absurd invention. By 1945 we were very tired of meat that was either salted or canned. Our supply troops as well as some of the soldiers within the combat formations were more fortunate, in that they often managed to acquire abandoned or ownerless cattle. While there could be no talk of obtaining vegetables in the spring, we often found large quantities of preserved fruit and vegetables in the cellars of settlements abandoned by the Germans, from which the local German population had fled, or where the Polish 176


inhabitants had been driven away by the Germans. Of course, we put these trophy products to good use. Happily for us, the trophy stockpiles in southern Poland were literally overflowing with sugar. My scouts prepared an extremely strong syrup by pouring hot tea over half a flask of sugar. Such a concentrated solution fortified us very well during our required shifts at the FOP. This difficult situation with food supply was altogether understandable. First of all, there were barely enough transport vehicles on hand to supply us with our minimum needs in terms of ammunition and fuel. Second, the population on the home front were not overeating either. Everything was just like Tvardovsky described when he wrote, “On the defense, by one way or another, but on the offense, we go hungry!” Spring was approaching, and the war was coming to an end – we sensed this in everything we did. Even so, we managed to get into some fine messes during the final days of the war. For example, on the evening of May 4, Metel’sky ordered me to supervise the transfer of the battery OP from Marksdorf to the northern approaches to Zobten, which was still occupied by the enemy. There was not much time left before dark, but we could not afford to wait until the darkness settled in before finding a safe way out of Marksdorf, and we needed time to find an OP with a good view while there was still visibility. We grabbed our weapons and a surveying compass, and, together with Kolechko, sometimes crawling and sometimes running, we crossed the dangerous sector and set out toward the southern end of Rogau-Rozenau. Despite the shortage of time, on the way we spent a quarter of an hour looking at a visual demonstration of the merits of the new 100 mm gun, which was called a “sotka” [a “hundredth”]. By the way, this was the first and only time I ever saw that gun in action. The “sotka” turned up here while, as they say, it was simply passing through. A single tractor with tracks was pulling the single gun to some location along the front line. The infantry that were manning positions somewhere along the edge of a farm had stopped the tractor, and the soldiers were trying to talk the senior lieutenant who was in charge of the gun into “scaring” a German tank, which they had seen in a village about 1 kilometers away. Although the “senior” tried to wave them off, they finally persuaded him and he became interested. Kolechko and I also became interested and decided to see how all of this would end. On the senior lieutenant’s orders, the gun crew, assisted by the infantrymen, detached the gun and rolled it to a convenient spot. While they were preparing the gun for action, the tractor turned and backed toward the gun. They took a single shell out of the box, determined the sighting distance from a map, and carefully aimed the gun. A single shot rang out, the tracer shell pierced the armor, and the German tank burst into flames. Without wasting any time, the “gunners” were already reattaching the gun to the tractor. After seeing this demonstration, I wished that we had 177


Figure 4.14 Red Army machine gunners opening fire on Germans in a building (photograph from E. Moniushko’s private collection).

possessed such a gun in our IPTAP (anti-tank artillery regiment) in 1944 when it was on the Sandomierz bridgehead. Despite this unanticipated delay, we managed to find a suitable location for the OP while it was still light, or rather before complete darkness settled in. Earthen walls had been erected between the towns of Rogau and Zobten, apparently as protection against floods. We decided to cut the trench for the OP into one of these walls. I sent Vasilii to fetch the platoon so that it could set up the equipment and establish communications, while I remained at the new site. I “borrowed” an entrenching tool from the infantrymen, and dug a foxhole during the night, while I waited for my men to arrive. They joined me just before dawn, together with Gavrilenko, the commander of the 1st Battery, whose guns, along with ours, were supposed to support the assault on Zobten. Of course, you could not fit the headquarter’s troops of two firing batteries into the small foxhole I had dug during the night. Therefore, Gavrilenko settled down in the infantry trench to the right, with Metel’sky next to him for solidarity’s sake, and, although it became quite roomy in my “structure,” I did not get to be in charge for very long. The assault began after a very short – about a ten-minute – artillery bombardment. Very few tanks took part in the attack. We could see only two or three vehicles in the rather wide sector that we could observe from 178


our OP, but these were the heavy model IS-2’ heavies [Iosev Stalin-2 heavy tanks]. They were moving forward slowly and carefully so as not to outdistance the infantrymen, and they were supporting the infantrymen by firing over their heads. Nevertheless, when the infantryman began advancing more energetically, as always, Kolechko and I also had to move forward so that we would not lose contact with “our” company in the town. A telephone operator began laying his wire in our wake. We passed through almost all of the small town along with the infantrymen, but when we reached the town’s southern side, we were stopped by heavy fire from “Fritzes,” who had entrenched themselves in the last houses on the south side of the town. Then, while we were trying to drive them out of these houses, other “Fritzes” bypassed the town from both flanks and entered it from both east and west, almost linking up in the center, and cutting us off. At the same time, the “Fritzes” who were still in the town began to counterattack. Before my very eyes, a heavy machine gun crew, which was trying to capture a German defensive position in the center of the town square, and only about 20–30 meters from our OP, was destroyed by a direct hit from a shell the “Fritzes” fired along the street from the southern end of the town. At the time, I did not have a direct communications link with our battery’s firing positions, since the telephone line connected us only to the battery commander, who was located in the northern end of Zobten along with the main part of the headquarters platoon. Using the map that the battery commander had given me earlier that day, I was indicating the specific sectors that needed to be fired upon, and Metel’sky was preparing the firing data and passing orders to the firing positions. When we realized that the “Fritzes” who had infiltrated the defenses along our flanks had suddenly appeared in the town’s center, and even worse, were now between us and the battery commander, I requested that fire be delivered against that area. This caused considerable indignation on Metel’sky’s part, since he claimed that I could not read a map. With some difficulty, I finally convinced him that I had not made a topographical error. Instead, I said, there was a new situation, about which the main OP knew nothing. Shortly thereafter, the battery fired several salvos. Actually, it was a very rare occurrence to conduct so-called “fire on oneself,” in circumstances when the observer and the guns were located on opposite sides of the target. Afterwards, the only time I ever had to conduct this type of fire was during exercises at the firing ranges. Soon after the firing began, the communications line went dead. This meant that either we had broke the line ourselves or the Germans, after finding our telephone cable passing through the area they had already recaptured, had cut the line. Soon after we lost our communications, we joined the infantrymen; with the “Fritzes” astride our broken cable, there 179


was simply no question of fixing the line. We then withdrew along with the infantry, sometimes crawling, sometimes running, and often making our way through holes blown out in the walls of buildings and nearby stone fences. I do recall that if it had not been for Kolechko’s quick actions, I might not have been able to get out of Zobten alive. After running through a small garden, which was enclosed by walls 2 meters high, we ran into some “Fritzes,” who, apparently without noticing us, were raking the garden with bursts of submachine gun fire. Since they were firing explosive bullets, which were bursting in the dense brush, it made it seem as if they were shooting from all sides. We fell to the ground and began crawling along the fence in different directions to find an exit from this deadly garden more quickly. Unfortunately, the direction I was crawling along led me to an abrupt dead end. I lay down and prepared my submachine gun, even though I did not place much faith in this particular gun. The problem was that, the day before our foray into Zobten, they had confiscated the submachine guns from many of the artillerymen, including me, so that they could better arm the infantrymen. After all, according to our TO&E [establishment], neither I nor the other artillerymen were supposed to have submachine guns. Of course, right after we had entered Zobten, I had “inherited” a submachine gun from a wounded or dead soldier. However, this PPSh turned out to be broken – it fired only single shots. For this reason, I really felt unarmed and quite unsure of myself. Then, suddenly, I felt someone pulling on my leg. After finding a breech in the wall and reconnoitering our route out, Vasilii had come back for me. After safely rejoining the infantrymen, I armed myself with a carbine instead of the broken PPSh. We then fought our way through to the northern end of the town where we found the two battery commanders, Gavrilenko and Metel’sky. Reunited, all of the signalmen from both batteries prepared to withdraw. It turned out that, while we were having our little adventure, the battery received orders to leave the town, return to its initial positions, and then march from there to a different sector of the front lines. By the time we returned to our battery’s firing positions, the gun crews had already arranged their guns for the march. Although division headquarters was pressuring him to move out, Metel’sky had delayed the battery’s redeployment in the hope that we would return before the battery departed, although, judging by the situation and his demeanor, he was not entirely sure we would. When we reached the waiting battery, everything had already been loaded for the move and the vehicles’ engines were already rumbling. As usual, I rode on one of the truck’s two splashboards during that 30kilometer-long night march, but in this case, only because I had to. This was the case because, after rolling up all of the lines and assembling all of their equipment, when my headquarter’s platoon finally returned from its 180


OP, the trucks had already been loaded, the guns were hooked up to the trucks, and everyone was waiting for us. By this time, of course, the soldiers had already occupied all of the better places to ride except the splashboards. However, it was quite important to have someone ride on the vehicle’s two splashboards, since this enabled the driver to drive in the dark without headlights. The persons sitting on the splashboards could see the road better than the driver could through his windshield. And if one of the vehicle’s wheels passed dangerously close to the edge of the road, the person riding on that splashboard signaled the driver by banging his hand on the vehicle’s hood. The person sitting on the vehicle’s other splashboard did the same whenever it was necessary to do so. It was quite normal to place scouts on these splashboards, and I considered myself as a member of the scouts. The most serious drawback associated with riding on splashboards was that, during the march, you had no time to exchange news, impressions, and other information with your colleagues. That was precisely what happened on this occasion. In this instance, it took me several days to learn that Gavrilenko, the commander of the 1st Battery, had almost lost his life on May 5, one of the last days of the war. At the time, as was the case with us, the “Fritzes” had enveloped and nearly encircled Gavrilenko and his headquarter’s platoon in the western part of the town of Zobten. While he was withdrawing, the hem of Gavrilenko’s cotton jacket became caught on a spike mounted on top of a metal fence, and he was left hanging without being able to free himself. The jacket turned out to be very tough and quite well made. All of this took places right under “Fritzes’ ” eyes. Gavrilenko finally attracted our soldier’s attention by firing his handgun while suspended in this “hanging” position. His orderly, the scout Mokrousov, ran up and pulled the battery commander off the fence by his feet, but doing so only by tearing the fine jacket apart from its hem to its collar. We finally arrived in the Jarishau area in the middle of the night on May 6 and quickly occupied our new positions. We fired a short bombardment the next morning, and then forward to the Striegau region. Since the infantry was advancing quite rapidly, we were falling behind with our communications. We passed by the village of Grunau, which was on our left, and we crossed Striegauer-Basser River. Once across the river, the headquarter’s troops of the entire battalion assembled in one large group, which presented a noticeable target. On the right flank, a smallcaliber gun was firing over open sights from the northern end of the town of Striegau. Although I ordered my men to spread out and disperse, the young infantry soldiers that had joined us were still all bunched up. Shells were whistling past us but falling either too short or too far, and shell fragments were screeching all around. Apparently at the end of its trajectory, 181


Figure 4.15 Red Army soldiers gathering at a grave of their fallen comrades (photograph from E. Moniushko’s private collection).

one shell fragment struck Tolia Frolov, who had not yet exchanged his hat for a pilot’s cap, in the head. Tolia [Anatolii] grabbed his hat in surprise, pulled a small, jagged piece of metal out from behind its flap, and said in broken Russian, “Shell came, put a fragment . . . hot-hot!” Despite the dangerous situation, everyone around us was roaring with laughter. Soon I received a new mission from the battery commander, to find the rifle battalion commander, Captain Kushch-Zharko. While we were supposed to be supporting Kushch-Zharko’s battalion, we had lost all communications with it, and no one knew where he and his battalion were located. The only thing we did know was the sector the battalion had been assigned. That is what was meant by the term “light German resistance.” If it had been any harder going, the battalion commander would have found the artillery himself. Although we spent more than two hours searching the battlefield in the battalion’s assigned sector, there was no trace of the infantry battalion we were supposed to be supporting. As we were beginning our search, we stumbled upon an abandoned DP light machine gun [7.62 mm Degtarev DP]. We checked it, and it was in full working order and even loaded. Vasilii, who simply could not look calmly at any abandoned item, especially weapons, took it with us, and carried that heavy “gift of fate” for a long time thereafter. Finally, we managed to place it on a cart, which was 182


bringing ammunition forward to the infantrymen. While that eased our movement considerably, we still had no idea where to look for KushchZharko. Knowing well that the infantrymen did not always restrict their activities to their assigned sectors, we decided to move to the right and enter the town of Striegau proper, even though it was still not clear whether our forces or the “Fritzes” were occupying the town. We soon determined that there really was a battle going on there. Since the town’s streets were blocked with barricades, we sneaked up to one of them. Suddenly a heavy shell fired from somewhere nearby, judging by the sound, exploded in a pile of debris near our barricade. Carefully peering around the edge of the barricade, we were utterly surprised! One of our own SU-152s [heavy selfpropelled guns] had taken up a firing position about 200 meters away, right in the middle of the street, and was blasting away at the barricade. We quickly signaled that we were “friendlies” and not “Fritzes.” The firing abruptly stopped. It turned out we had not entered the town from the side we were supposed to have entered. Instead, we had infiltrated the town from the back entrance. We finally located Captain Kushch-Zharko in one of the town’s squares, where he was assembling his rifle companies to lead them to his assigned sector, which was still unoccupied. I approached Kushch-Zharko, introduced myself, and reported on the task assigned to me. “Well, go and report that you have found me,” he said, adding, “How did you manage to find me here?” After I told him how I had done so, he dismissed me, stating, “Easy to say, Go and report!” But I was still somewhat perplexed. I asked myself, “How was I supposed to find Metel’sky and our battalion?” and Kushch-Zharko – Where would he be when we returned? The good captain reassured me, “Since you have found me, it is likely that you’ll find your own as well. And we’ll be in our assigned sector.” Before setting out for our trip back (although this is not entirely correct; it would be better to say our trip “forward”), we suddenly remembered that it was already the second half of May 6, and that the last time we had really eaten was early on the morning of May 4. We had changed our combat formation for two nights in a row during two hot days, first to Zobten and then to Striegau, and during this period we had not received any hot meals. In some sort of bakery in Zobten, we and other soldiers had grabbed an apple pie, which was about 1 square meter in size, and split it up among those of us who were most starving. Finally deciding to fortify ourselves, we entered a house in Striegau, one located near our infamous barricade, and found a dinner already prepared for us in the kitchen. We put this meal to good use, regretting only that there weren’t any other comrades from our platoon present. Later that evening, we found Metel’sky and the entire battalion already positioned on the edge of the town of Stanowitz, which was situated just 183


south of Striegau. That is where we spent the night, laying along the highway and in roadside ditches together with “our” infantrymen, who were gradually arriving. We all went forward once again the next morning. It was on the next day, while located on the southern edge of the Vorst Nonnen Busch Forest about 3 kilometers north of Freiburg, that we witnessed, and, to some degree, participated in our last serious combat engagement. Nothing that happened thereafter, including our excursion into Czechoslovakia after May 9, generated as much combat tension. When the advancing infantry and our artillerymen with them reached the line of the forest’s edge, a line of German assault guns began advancing toward us up a gentle slope ascending from the northern edge of Freiburg. The line included no less than ten assault guns along a front of about 1 kilometer. We immediately sent urgent messages to our firing platoons. We ordered Malyshev’s howitzer battery to open fire, and the “gunners” immediately deployed their howitzers for direct fire. It was frighteningly clear, however, that the “Fritzes’ ” assault guns would arrive first. While they were already on the move, and only about 2 kilometers remained between them and us, our guns were farther away, and, on top of that, they also had to be displaced from their former positions and deployed into new positions. It seemed as if it would become quite hot. And then, suddenly, a group of our SU-152s, one of which had quite by accident almost finished off me and Vasilii in Striegau, emerged from the forest just to our rear and deployed into a similar line. The slaughter began within several minutes. The 6-inch shells from our self-propelled guns literally tore “Fritzes’ ” “boxes” [tanks] to pieces, while the return fire couldn’t even dent, much less pierce, the frontal armor of the SU-152s. This last desperate attempt by the “Fritzes” to defend Freiburg ended in ten smoky fires across the battlefield. The details of just how we entered and passed through the city of Freiburg have been completely erased from my memory. After leaving the city behind, at nightfall we once again halted along the highway. I do recall that we examined several huge albums produced by the local Hitlerjugend [Hitler Youth] organization, which contained photographs of parades, drills, rallies, etc. with the help of illumination from a pocket flashlight that someone had brought along. Then we threw all of the albums into the fire that we used to warm ourselves during this still-cool May night. We began moving again the next morning. By now the infantrymen were falling behind us, and, after picking up some infantrymen with their vehicles, the 9th Artillery Regiment’s 1st Battalion went ahead to the town of Waldenburg. The city of Waldenburg itself was located in a deep depression below the road. After exiting a forest, the road went downhill into the town, where smoke was still rising from the houses’ smokestacks, and even the 184


Figure 4.16 The artillery battery on the move during the spring of 1945 (drawn by E. Moniushko).

sound of streetcars could still be heard. In every respect, the city seemed completely calm. After our forward vehicle stopped at the edge of the forest, the rest of the vehicles in the column hid among and behind the trees. We dispersed in a clearing above the city and observed it for quite some time. It seemed as if we were not expected. About half an hour passed. Then Captain Shliakhov, gesturing with a long sword, which he had apparently picked up in Freiburg, got up on the footboard of a Studebaker truck and shouted, “Forward!” Captain Mikhailov, the battalion’s chief of staff, was seated in the same position in the second truck, only with a walking stick instead of a sword in his hand. We leaped onto the vehicle’s splashboards, with the self-propelled guns pointed ahead, and said, “Let’s ride!” We literally flew into the city without firing a shot. After jumping off the trucks, the infantrymen opened the gates of the first small factory on the right side of the road near the entrance into the city. There, in the yard, were groups of drunken and unarmed “Fritzes.” We rushed on further. It seemed as if all life in the streets was normal. The streetcars were running and pedestrians were walking about. Seeing us, however, they burst in every direction. White sheets soon appeared in the windows and on the balconies. Within a very short time, the city was flooded with artillery, artillerymen, and infantry. The soldiers began establishing “order” according to their needs. Some jumped into a streetcar, demanding that it take them in the required direction. The conductor tried to object, pointing to the route 185


number and gesticulating as he explained that he wasn’t supposed to drive there. However, once he noticed a soldier’s expressive gesture with his submachine gun, he lost that argument, and drove the streetcar off its designated route. Soon, however, these liberties ended, regular patrols began maintaining order, and our commanders began to divide the city’s territory among their units. Of course, while I am not entirely certain of it, it seems that even now I could find the house where our battery found shelter in a first floor apartment. An electric light was on and a radio was working in that room. Our radio operators immediately took control of it, and began turning its dials. After listening to programs in various languages, we finally managed to tune into some station broadcasting in Russian. There, in the dark of the evening, we heard the announcement of Germany’s capitulation. Yells of “Ura!” immediately shot into the air, along with congratulations and many tears. Wine appeared from somewhere, followed by pure alcohol, schnapps, and something else . . . Some soldiers were already unsteady on their feet, arguing about something, and getting excited. Soberly, Kolechko then came up to me and said, “Platoon commander, we must restrain ourselves. God forbid, the ‘Fritzes’ could think something up.” Without putting a drop in his mouth throughout the remainder of the night, Kolechko accompanied me on our rounds among the vehicles, the guns, and the sleeping soldiers. When dawn arrived, the battery commanders began rushing about, waking up the men, and searching for the drivers. The tractors’ engines started up, and, a short time later, we received an order to march to the city of Prague at full speed. Somehow, we managed to load our trucks in an almost unconscious state. We then jumped in ourselves, and we moved onward toward Prague. Once again on the road, this time along a pass through the Sudeten Mountains, we saw the empty shells of old Czech pillboxes to the right and the left of the road. Soon the Czechoslovakian border appeared. All of the units became intermixed. The infantrymen had found trophy vehicles in Waldenburg, including carts and bicycles, and all of these vehicles flowed from the mountains into Czechoslovakia like an irresistible torrent. While we experienced some short engagements with the “Fritzes,” who were retreating rapidly to the west, we encountered traffic jams and streets crammed with people in every village and town we entered. The people were throwing flowers into the vehicles, shouting “Ura!” and “Na zdar! ” and offering us food, and other refreshments. Speeches and songs could be heard here and there. In one town, I think it was Dwor Krapowe, the column became struck amidst a dense crowd. Shliakhov, who was standing on the hood of a Dodge truck, tried to reason with the people in Russian to bring them back to their senses so they would part and make way for our column. However, the crowd mistook his exclamations and 186

Figure 4.17 The 9th Artillery Regiment’s area of operations at the beginning of the Prague operation (1:50,000 scale) (drawn by E. Moniushko).

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gestures as a salutatory speech and replied with yells of “Na zdar! ” and “Zet zhie!” Suddenly, a group of people in civilian dress made their way to the front Dodge truck, pushing the people to the left and right. They said something to Shliakhov, and he immediately shouted an order, “To battle!” Understanding that this wasn’t a joke, the people made way for our column. The vehicles rushed forward, drove into the railroad station square, and deployed as if on maneuvers. Seconds passed, and by this time, our gun barrels were already pointed at the railroad station and a nearby train that was getting ready to depart. It turned out that this attempt by a group of “Fritzes” to escape to the west from the city had failed. With their hands raised, the “Fritzes” emerged from the railroad cars and threw their weapons into a pile in the middle of the square. The pile of submachine guns, carbines, and machine guns grew into a mountain, as in Vereschagin’s Apotheosis of War. Czechoslovakian partisans immediately surrounded the distraught prisoners. But we soon received the order, “To the guns – all clear!” And once again we moved forward, often repeating the same encounters. Although Prague wasn’t very far ahead, we received an order to halt. We did so in a small grove to the right of the road between the small towns of Gorzhice and Miletin. This became our regiment’s first peace-time camp. The war was indeed over. Perhaps those who have had enough patience to read this tome through to the end will ask a simple question, that is, “Why have I mentioned so few of the names of my fellow servicemen, particularly the names of my comrades in the regiment, the division, and the battery?” I will answer this question before you ask it. The fact is that I wrote only what my memory permitted me to write about the last few months of the war. And, of course, my mind failed to preserve everything. Thus, I deliberately wrote only about those events I participated in myself, and only about those whom I knew personally during wartime. In fact, this included very few people. During the peace that followed our victory, first in Czechoslovakia, then in Hungary, and, later still, in Zaporozh’e in the Ukraine, I befriended many whom I had not known as yet in 1945, and I got to know them better. I did indeed sense them next to me during the final year of the war, and I relied heavily on their combat work. In the same fashion, I hope they felt the results of our platoon’s combat labor. In all fairness, I should now name some of these trusted comrades. They included Senior Lieutenant Nikolai Sevast’ianovich Klimchenko, our battalion’s deputy political commander; Junior Lieutenant Ivan Pykhtin, our battalion’s Party organizer Ivan Pykhtin; and Sergeants Kaptsov and Boguslavsky, both gun commanders, who had left our battalion at the end 188


of May 1945 to participate in the Victory Parade in Moscow. Both of these sergeants had fought from the very beginning of the war in the Leningrad Front, and both were distinguished by the orders and decorations they earned, as well as their imposing “grenadiers’ ” heights. Then there was the battalion’s medical service lieutenant, whose last name I have forgotten but who cured, “without any interruption in my work,” a wound I received from an accidental shot shortly after the war. I should also mention Senior Lieutenants Pindiurin and Vasilii Ivanovich Borkovkin, our artillery technicians, who always efficiently performed necessary repairs on our guns and other equipment; Senior Lieutenant Makhno, the battalion’s communication’s chief; and Lieutenant Perfil’ev, the battalion’s motor vehicle technician, whose cars, according to his expression, “Began like matches.” I should also mention Lieutenant Meshalkin, Shutrik’s colleague from the 3rd Howitzer Battery; Private Burenkov, who was wounded by a shell fragment on May 7 after we were well beyond Freiburg, making him our battery’s last combat loss; and Fedia Scherbenko and Ivan Antonenko, the headquarter’s platoon commanders of the battalion’s 1st and 3rd Batteries, who arrived in our regiment during the last few days of April or in early May 1945. Of course, there are many more I have failed to mention or recall. While I have met others at our veterans’ meetings and others are no longer with us, we, the living, remember them and our common fight for Victory. I hope that other participants in these battles will also take up a pencil and write down everything they recall, and include those small details that no one else except us could ever know. With this appeal to my comrades-in-arms, I end my notes about the war.

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It was the middle of May 1945. The war was behind us. The units of the 72nd Pavlovsk Red Banner, Order of Suvorov Rifle Division were encamped in the area of the town of Horˇice, in northern Czechoslovakia. Our 9th Leningrad, Order of Kutuzov Artillery Regiment was “quartered” in a small grove near the road connecting the towns of Horˇice and Miletin, almost halfway between them, but somewhat closer to Miletin. Cars and trucks were parked in a long row at the edge of the grove – staff cars, cargo trucks, and artillery tractors. They were parked with their backs toward the forest, ready to drive out. Guns were attached to the tractors, with their barrels hidden in the branches of the grove. Immediately inside the grove, tents assembled out of improvised materials were scattered between the trees. We had prepared “double occupancy rooms” out of two ground sheets and had covered their triangular pediments with trophy German camouflage covers. In some places, we prepared entire “cottages” for a squad or a gun crew, which we constructed out of the tarpaulin [canvas] covers taken off a truck. Sentries with submachine guns, almost invisible in the forest, were all around us. The field kitchens were deployed at the end of the row of cars and smoke was continuously rising from them. However, during the first few days of peace, most of the men were simply resting or making small repairs to their equipment, footwear, and other accoutrements. In our free time, we launched sorties to the nearest settlements. Some officers, especially those without any men directly under their command, got pretty far on such excursions, even as far as Prague, which was no less than 50 kilometers away. A rather wide area between the line of cars and the road passing by the grove was crammed with people throughout the entire day, from morning to evening, until dark. Local residents came here, got acquainted with us, and, despite their lack of knowledge of our language, tried to make conversation, and brought us some treats. A wheeled tractor pulling a trailer on small rubber-covered wheels, filled with metal kegs of beer, arrived. Beer lovers closely surrounded the trailer – after all, the beer was free. In any case, we 190

Figure 5.1 The 9th Artillery Regiment’s movement from Czechoslovakia to Hungary (drawn by E. Moniushko).

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had no money with which to pay for it, since we were not allowed to possess any local currency. Actually, however, no one knew as yet what sort of currency was supposed to be used here. Even postage stamps from the period of the German occupation were still valid, except that the authorities used a special device to stamp a thick cross across Hitler’s image. Cameras clicked with almost no respite. Guys gladly had their pictures taken both by local professionals and by amateurs. Within a day or two, the photographers would then bring and distribute the finished photos. Vasia Kolechko and I also had our pictures taken. That is the only photo in which we actually appeared as we were at the front, with the same faces and the same uniforms. But, after all, only a week had passed since the war’s end. A rumor surfaced about the selection of candidates for a trip to Moscow to participate in the Victory Parade. The selection process was quite simple. First of all, all “dark spots” had to be absent in one’s biography and military record. Second, one had to be decorated with an order, or better yet, several of them. Third, it was desirable to be of impressive height and complexion. In accordance with the order, two were preparing to go from our battery, Sergeants Kaptsov and Boguslavsky, who were gun commanders. Neither ever returned to the regiment; they were both discharged after the Victory Parade, even though the other soldiers from their year group would serve for a while longer. And so the war ended. Ironically, however, Senior Sergeant Vasia Kolechko, our battery’s best scout, who survived the entire Great Patriotic War, did not have a single award or decoration. After consulting with the battery commander, Senior Lieutenant Metel’sky, I wrote a recommendation for Vasia to be decorated with an Order of the Red Star. The main portion of that recommendation was my description of the battle for Zobten, which had taken place on May 5, 1945 and where, by risking his life, Kolechko had gotten me out of an extremely dangerous situation. Of course, I could recall other episodes much earlier than that, but then we ran the risk of being asked in reply, “And where were you earlier?” or “Why didn’t you submit this before?” That was why I selected only the “freshest” event. On one of the last few days of May, the field mail service brought me the latest issue of the army’s newspaper. In it there was an order describing the award of several dozens of privates, non-commissioned officers, and officers with various orders and medals. I found “Kolechko, Vasilii Tarasovich” in the order, and several lines below, listed by alphabetical order, the entry “Moniushko, Evgenii Dmitrievich.” Although I was happy for my close comrade, it was also very nice to see my own name in the order. More than anything else, however, I was deeply touched when, while walking among the tents one evening, I overheard through the 192

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canvas tarpaulin the words, “It is only proper that our junior lieutenant was also decorated. From the time he got to the regiment, never left the forward positions.” Soon after, I attended the first post-war Party meeting. A portion of the agenda was consideration of my application to be granted Party membership, which I had submitted back at the end of March, after the fighting for the city of Neisse. I was being recommended by my battery commander, Metel’sky, and by my platoon’s radio operator, Kostia Shalaev. We sat right on the ground, under the trees. The battalion’s Party organizer, Junior Lieutenant Ivan Pykhtin, was chairman of the meeting. Although I do not recall any other details of that meeting, when it came for criticism and advice, someone recommended that I not get too close to my subordinates. I recall asking myself, “But how can you not be close to those who were under fire right next to you, and those who saved your life?” Well, that was the first but certainly not the last time I had to defend my opinion. But the vote to admit me was still unanimous. Some time later, I was looking over the surrounding region, which, incidentally, was very picturesque, with a group of fellow soldiers. Near a small sandy slope with pines growing on top, we met a local resident and greeted him with the commonly accepted words, “Na zdar!” Noticing our intention to go down the slope, the Czech suddenly shouted, “Pozor!” [in Russian, the word “pozor” means “shame”]. General bewilderment followed. “Pozor, pozor!” he repeated, while gesturing somehow with his hand. It turned out that, in Czech, “pozor” meant “attention.” As we glanced down the slope of the hill, we immediately saw an unexploded hand grenade lying on the ground. Since we were all armed, we immediately shot up the grenade with simultaneous fire from several submachine guns and handguns. Quite naturally, speculation began about the origin of the hand grenade, or, rather, about how the grenade happened to be there (its origins were obviously German). The Czech told us that Czech partisans had recently set up an ambush near the hill, where they had fired at a German column. He showed us the partisan’s exact “disposition,” where the column had marched, and where it had actually been ambushed. It was indeed fortunate that the storyteller did not understand Russian very well. Many of our soldiers, including Kuznetsov, Skorogonov, and several others, were former partisans from Pskov, and reacted with very mocking comments on his story. In their opinions, that ambush, which was so far from the road, was simply meaningless amusement. There was a farm not far from the 9th Artillery Regiment’s camp, which was marked on our maps only as “G.dv.” that is, a landlord’s former estate. The estate consisted of two or three houses, several large barns arranged in a square, and a well trampled area between them. A “kulak” [landowner] and his family owned the estate. He had hired several 193

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workers and, apparently, had also collaborated with the Germans. That was apparent from the distinctly unfriendly glances and expressions cast in his direction from the locals. It turned out that this farm and the trampled down area between the barns was the most convenient spot near our camp for people to gather. And gather they did. Every evening many people came from the nearby and even more distant villages. The young and the not so young, some even quite advanced in years, all came, some alone but many with their entire families. For reasons unbeknownst to me, entire groups would organize and begin to sing. They sang in chorus, as duos, or alone, either accompanied by an accordion or without any music at all. Could it be that everyone there was a performer or a singer? It was very difficult to talk with them and to find out anything about why this was going on. Even though the Czech tongue is a Slavic language, to me it seemed even less comprehensible than Polish. And the Czechs spoke German only very grudgingly, even when it was apparent that they knew the language. With great difficulty we finally determined that, after occupying this region as far back as 1938, the Germans forbade the locals from singing. And they not only forbade patriotic or social songs, but also the singing of all songs in Czech, in general. Therefore, these people, who had missed their songs for years, sang for hours without leaving. It was also amazing that these people picked up our songs, the songs of soldiers, which, while totally unknown to them, might have seemed most strange and even alien to them. These improvised concerts would go on until late at night. I would leave only because duty was duty, and I had to check what was going on in my platoon. There was a sergeant major named Lupekin, who was serving in our 9th Artillery Regiment. While I do not know exactly what duty he performed, it seems as if he was a telephone operator in the regimental headquarter’s battery. He had been drafted during the earliest period of the war from his second-year class in a theater institute. While at the institute, his major field of study had been in directing performances as well as performing, himself, as a magician. As a result, Lupekin became a constant participant and leader of soldier talent shows, which took place even during wartime. Now, in peacetime, he accelerated his directing and performing activities. A small performance was organized under his direction, entitled most appropriately, “The Beaten ‘Fritzes’.” The time for the premiere was determined, and the farm mentioned above was to serve as the theater. The audience, which sat right on the ground with our soldiers intermixed with the local boys and girls, occupied the entire area between the barns. Older people, including primarily officers and local peasants, stood in the back behind the audience. The farm owner with his family was there as well. The large two-piece gate of one of the barns was wide open, and a theatrical curtain was attached to it – this was the cover from a Studebaker. 194

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The curtain was pulled apart, and Lupekin jumped onto the empty stage, pounding the wooden planking with his metal-heeled boots. He was wearing a tattered German uniform, pants torn on the ass, and German boots with short tops. We immediately recognized the lanky, awkward figure of the sergeant major, when the second “Fritz” jumped out from behind the improvised curtain – this one short and fat. Both of them looked behind them in horror, at those who were supposedly chasing them, and suddenly, finding themselves in front of hundreds of laughing people, they froze in ridiculous positions. Suddenly, through the laughter, someone in the audience loudly shouted the Czech word “Kukai!” (“Look!”). One of the Czechs was pointing at the farm owner. He was standing there white as a sheet all over, suddenly sweating, and holding his hand to his chest. A quick command from one of the officers followed, and the farm was quickly surrounded. After searching through the barns, the regiment’s scouts dragged a couple of real “Fritzes” out from under a pile of some trash. The Czechs themselves took the farm owner into custody. He had betrayed himself, taking our “performers” for the real Germans he was hiding on his farm. During this period, there was a general passion for motorcycles in the regiment. A scout in my platoon named Timofeev found a trophy “Zuendapp” [a model of motorcycle] somewhere. It was a heavy machine with a side-car, a Gimbal drive for its transmission, and a powerful engine. Sometimes we took week-long trips as a group. Seven men could fit on the “Zuendapp,” and, even with such a load, it could climb any incline. Probably, we thought, this motorcycle could also have towed a light gun. Konstantin Ivanovich Shliakhov, our battalion commander, who we simply called “Kostia,” (the Russian diminutive form of the name Konstantin), behind his back because of his youth, preferred to drive alone on a light motorcycle. However, on one occasion, while he was trying to avoid a head-on collision with a truck that had appeared from behind a curve on a highway near Miletin, he drove his motorcycle off the road, knocked down a border post, and found himself in the Czech hospital at Miletin with a broken arm, cracked ribs, and knocked out teeth. Captain Zamansky, the regimental doctor, also decided to participate in this sport. Soldiers taught him how to ride a motorcycle right in the clearing in front of the row of the regiment’s trucks. Tall and thin, but unable to see anything without strong glasses, the doctor took his first lessons. Forgetting which way he had to turn the gas handle to slow the motorcycle down, he did it the other way, and after being scared by the result, pushed his feet into the ground. The motorcycle jumped from under him and continued on its own until it hit an obstacle. Everyone was laughing except the owner of the motorcycle – repairs were definitely required. Two weeks had already passed since the war ended, and it was clearly time to move on to peacetime order and pursuits. That is when the collection 195

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of trophy weapons began. There were certainly many of them in the pockets of officers, non-commissioned officers, and even privates, and they included a vast array of Mausers, Colts, Brownings, Walthers, and Parabellums of various models and calibers. While they ordered the noncommissioned officers and privates to turn in their non-regulation weapons immediately, for a time the officers remained exempt from that order. As a rule, no one was really trying to hide these guns, because that just wasn’t possible. After all, no one had hidden them in the past, and everyone knew the owners of these trophies. Vasia Kolechko crawled into my small tent and offered me an exchange. Instead of turning in his excellent HP-38 handgun (“Walther” model, 9 mm caliber), he wanted to turn in my Colt, which had been manufactured by a Polish factory in Radom and was a large, cumbersome, and unreliable weapon. And then the Walther would become mine. Since I had no objections, we affected the exchange. Vasia carried away my Colt. I examined, cleaned, and oiled his present, loaded it, sent the cartridge into the barrel, set the safety, put it back in the place where Vasilii had left it, and searched for the holster under the pillow. While I was searching at the head of my bed, Kolechko ran back in, saying, “Well, I turned in your handgun. And I will clean this one.” Then I heard the click of the safety being removed. I still don’t know how I managed to make so sharp a turn and strike the hand aiming the Walther at my stomach. The barrel turned downward and a shot rang out. “Heh,” I said, “A hole in my new boot again!” Then I pulled the boot off. The small toe on my left foot had been punctured at its base by a 9 mm bullet; actually, it was amazing that it wasn’t entirely torn off. All of my comrades, as well as the regiment duty officer, rushed in at the sound of the gunshot. Obviously, they immediately confiscated the Walther. I asked them not to raise any uproar over this incident. After all, it was obviously a simple accident, especially since it involved Vasia Kolechko, with whom we had gone through so much during the war. In order to suppress the story, I avoided reporting to either the medical battalion or the regimental medical facility. Our battalion medic, who was a small but quick senior lieutenant in the medical service whose name I have unfortunately forgotten, treated me by washing the wound and changing my makeshift dressing. Thereafter, I was not able to put a boot on the left foot for two weeks, or perhaps even longer. After wrapping my foot in a foot binding and covering it with bandage, I simply walked (really limped) around. In response to those who did not know what had happened, I would say that my old wound was aching – after all, it was on the same leg, only higher. Soon after, a representative from SMERSH [counterintelligence] came to me to ask if I saw any evil intent behind the shooting. I categorically denied that version and explained why. Fortunately for Vasia, he was satisfied with my answer. 196

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Although the wounded foot didn’t really bother me very much, walking around on it without a boot was uncomfortable and, of course, the appearance wasn’t all that great either. Probably the greatest unpleasantness was that night walks became very difficult. During one of the “song festivals,” which I have already mentioned, Vasia and I met two girlfriends who lived almost on the outskirts of Horˇive, which was located 3–4 kilometers from our camp. Very often we went to visit with them in the evenings. I went to see Bozhenka Zapadlova, and Vasia visited her friend, whose name was also Bozhenka. Of course, walking over a dark road with a foot wrapped in a foot binding instead of a boot was pretty difficult, but sometimes my comrades would give me a ride in the “Zuendapp,” but of course, only one way. After all, who could say when the date would be over? The other inhabitants of the small village where our girlfriends lived greeted us like one their own. The young people, their parents, and old folks all tried to give us treats and to cook something tasty for us, and we sometimes brought food for them from our trophy stockpile. Many years later, in 1990–1991 I believe, one of the active members of the CzechSoviet Friendship Society, named Vladimir Vyrava, who was from the town of Jicîn, helped me to re-establish correspondence with the residents of that village. By that time, only Frantishka Zmitkova, who was then 90 years old, remained among those who remembered the Soviet soldiers. Her granddaughter, whom we held in our arms in 1945, wrote her letters to us in Russian. Unfortunately, these contacts, which had been reestablished after so long a silence, were soon interrupted by the counterrevolution that occurred in the USSR. In the middle of June, the regiment began preparations for a long march. This was in connection with the reorganization of the Soviet Army, which began shortly after the Victory. The authorities were converting the Soviet Army’s wartime fronts into specific groups of forces, disbanding or reforming many formations, and beginning to regroup some forces to the east and Far East. During this period, our 72nd Rifle Division also ceased to exist. They transferred its regiments, including our 9th Artillery Regiment, to other divisions deployed in Hungary, specifically, to the 113th Guards Rifle Division, which, in turn, had formerly been designated the 6th Guards Airborne Division (in the 7th Guards Army). Before we left for Hungary, headquarter’s representatives came to Czechoslovakia to familiarize themselves with the state of the regiments, their equipment, and their personnel. Despite the fact that the new division to which we were being assigned bore the celebrated title of “Guards,” the way the officers and even privates in our division treated the visiting inspectors was noticeably ironic. All of “our people” in the regiment were patriots, who had their roots in Leningrad. The following incident comes to mind. When one of the 197

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visiting “Guards” inspectors arrived bringing a dog with him, the animal began running around the camp, finding food leftovers somewhere near the field kitchens, and began hungrily devouring them. In response to a joke about how the “Guards” apparently did not eat very well, random onlookers from our regiment began laughing so uproariously that the terrified dog fled the scene with its tail between its legs. This caused a new explosion of laughter over the obvious fact that food was poor and bravery was lacking in the “Guards.” Of course, these were normal soldierly jokes. After all, only sailors could joke and mock so well, and besides, our division had originated from the former 7th Naval Infantry Brigade. Actually, we knew very well that, at the very end of the war, these “Guards” divisions had been engaged in extremely heavy combat at Lake Balaton, and they had not brought discredit on their glorious “Guards” designation. Before our long march began, they allocated the regiment’s privates and non-commissioned officers among the trucks and appointed vehicle commanders from among the regiment’s officers. The drivers, who knew full well what a drive of several hundreds of kilometers meant, prepared their vehicles, checked the engines, changed the oil, and rotated the tires while carefully considering their wear. This was routinely familiar military work. Major Metelitsa, the regimental chief of staff, did display considerable foresight. Unlike many other marches, when no one except the commanders knew either the precise route or destination, this time he provided each vehicle commander with a sheet of paper listing all of the more or less significant settlements along the route. This was quite necessary, since, despite the most thorough preparations, we could expect to experience vehicle breakdowns and other unforeseen events. Of course, the entire column was not supposed to wait for any stragglers. In addition, the list of settlements was also supposed to help the commander find the way. However, it was not possible to equip everyone with maps. Why am I talking about the likelihood of breakdowns? I will explain it by using the vehicle that I commanded as an example. The two-axle Chevrolet, which had a rated cargo capacity of 1.5 tons, was loaded with the complete ammunition load for a 76 mm ZIS-3 gun. That amounted to 30 cases of ammunition weighing about 1.8 tons, and 22 men with their weapons, equipment, and personal belongings, which adding up to another 2.5 tons, sat on top of the ammunition cases. And on top of that, a gun weighing 1.1 tons was attached to the truck. While carrying or pulling such a load, you could reasonably expect burst tires, cracks in the shocks, and an overheated engine. The driver of my Chevrolet was the experienced Private Pavchenko, who had extensive pre-war driving experience and was the oldest of the drivers of our battery, if not the entire battalion. With such a driver, I did not have to worry about the technical aspects of the trip, since everything 198

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that could have been done was done. I was more worried by the fact that, out of the 22 men assigned to my truck, my subordinates, the privates and non-commissioned officers of the 2nd Battery’s headquarter’s platoon, constituted barely half of the men on board. The other half were from all over, and included men from the battalion’s headquarter’s platoon, and even some from the regimental headquarter’s battery, who were under the charge of Sergeant Major Lupekin, who I have already mentioned. My previous experience in the battery’s headquarter’s platoon had convinced me it was both useful and necessary to carry trophy maps with me. That was why my map case and knapsack were brimming with many topographical, geographical, and special road maps of various regions (I still even have maps of several regions in North Africa). After receiving the list of towns and villages along our route, the first thing I did was to mark these points on a road map, after which I put the list away somewhere. This act, however, had very unexpected consequences. As far as I recall, the regimental vehicular column set out on its long march on the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the war – on June 22, 1945. We drove very slowly for the first 10–15 kilometers, since crowds of people were standing along the road to see us off. They showered the vehicles with flowers and yelled greetings as we passed. The column was a long one; it contained about 70 vehicles, and it stretched out for 2–3 kilometers. Then, after we left behind the familiar places and the people we had got to know and had befriended during that month following the war, the column increased its speed and stretched out an even greater distance as it headed south. And this was where the anticipated but still unexpected events began occurring. First, one of the tires on our overloaded Chevrolet soon went flat. We parked on the shoulder of the highway, let the column pass on ahead of us, and replaced the tire. While examining the road signs and my map, on which I had previously marked all of the main points along the routes beforehand, I was giving Pavchenko directions, and he was exploiting each and every opportunity to drive faster in order to catch up with the column. Of course, we could drive much faster alone than as part of the column. However, after an hour had passed, and then two more hours, there was still no sign of our column visible in front of us. The towns of Pardubice and Neˇmecky´ Brod were already behind us. In the town of Jihlava, I tried to ask if a column had passed through, but I was not able to determine whether it had or not. They had set up no checkpoints, the highways lacked the sort of order that we had been experienced on military highways during the war. I asked myself, “What should we do?” The only answer I could come up with was to continue moving forward again. Then we passed through the town of Znojmo, and we were then in Austria. The men riding in the back of the truck were glad that we were all alone, because, this way, it felt 199

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much more “liberating.” Then, in the back of the truck, a chorus organized itself spontaneously but under Lupekin’s general supervision, and the chorus began uproariously singing songs that would never have passed the ears of any censors, songs similar to those sung by the Cossacks as they paraded by in Mikhail Sholokhov’s book, The Quiet Don. Pavchenko, our driver, was also overjoyed – what driver would not prefer a free drive to movement in a confining column? I was, however, already becoming consumed by worry. Of course, on the one hand, we were the victors. On the other hand, however, I did not have any documents giving me the right to drive all over Europe. Could some sort of an international scandal result? After a little more distance had passed, I saw the Danube River shining before me under a steep slope on the right side of the road. The road had become more and more crowded, and it looked as if it would be pretty difficult to cross the Danube at Vienna. Many of the bridges had been destroyed, and vehicles were approaching the only functioning one, to which several roads led from the left bank, from all directions. A permanent traffic jam formed. It looked as if we would have to stand there longer than just five or ten minutes. Vehicles were jammed up in front of us, and some cars, which had attempted to go around the jam, stood idle almost astride the road. Since there was no order whatsoever, it seemed as if it was going to be a long wait. Therefore, I got out of the truck to stretch my legs and ordered the men to do the same. However, since they were higher up than I and could see what was going on better than I could, they did not even wait for my order. Suddenly I saw a familiar face among the people rushing back and forth along the road. It was a classmate of mine from the 1st TAU (the 1st Tomsk Artillery). Somehow, we noticed each other simultaneously, and had just began a conversation recalling our academy days at Tomsk and along the Ushaika River, when a new character appeared. Some general with a heavy stick in his hand had finally begun restoring order. On his orders, the soldiers pushed the vehicles that were standing astride the road off to the shoulder and even into the roadside ditches. The left side of the road was cleared of all vehicles to let the oncoming traffic go by and to free the entrance of the bridge. Whenever anyone objected, the general energetically and skillfully wielded his club. To avoid any problems, we followed his orders and went to our allotted place. Soon order was restored and movement resumed. Vienna was a large city, probably with interesting architecture, but I saw almost none of it – I devoted all of my attention to the road signs and other directions. I was looking for an exit from Vienna in a southerly direction. When I finally stumbled across a street I was looking for, suddenly, we noticed trucks pulling guns going across one of the intersections. That was our battalion, specifically, Senior Lieutenant Malyshev’s 3rd 200

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Battery. At the same moment, they also noticed us. We stopped and began arguing where to go. After I managed to convince them that our route was the correct one, we drove out of the city together. Soon after, we stopped for the night, and, gradually, all of the stragglers began joining us. Battery Commander Metel’sky began reproaching me, saying that, after falling behind, I had spent the entire day hanging about somewhere. We tried to figure it out. It turned out that, when copying the list of way stations along our route, the staff clerks had confused the order of these points. As a result, after it had already passed through the town of Pardubice, the column had returned back along a circuitous route to a location they had already passed through. All the while, by using my map and not paying attention to the paper list provided by the headquarters, I was actually “catching up” with them on the way to Vienna, thus avoiding the unnecessary detour of about 50 kilometers. Apparently, we were also better able to orient ourselves after we arrived in Vienna. Although possessing a map certainly played a part in this success, so also did the knowledge of German, which I had received in my schooling. In any event, while on the move, I was able to read the street signs, which were written in Latin script, from our truck, while many of my colleagues had to stop and spend time deciphering what the sign really meant. In this case, our accomplishments helped rather than hurt the headquarter’s platoon’s reputation. After accomplishing the remainder of the trip without any further special adventures, we drove through all of Austria, crossed the Austrian–Hungarian border, and, on the morning of the third day of our trip, we halted in a forest near the village of Letenye, north of the Mura River and not far from the Yugoslav border, having traversed a distance of about 800 kilometers. At first, our new camp at Letenye looked even less “civilized” than our first peacetime stop in Czechoslovakia. I remember that I slept on a door brought by soldiers from a ruined house, resting my head on my field bag and covering myself with a ground sheet. Strange as it might seem, I slept soundly, without feeling any horizontal or vertical projections on the door. After concluding some sort of deal with local traders, Major Revzin, the regiment’s chief of rear services, obtained a large number of boards for the regiment, although they were unfinished, poorly cut, thin, and uneven. Nevertheless, this permitted us to build camp cottages for the entire regiment, including 6 ⫻ 6 meter cottages housing 10–12 men for the lower ranks and 4 ⫻ 4 meter cottages housing 3–4 men for the officers. Although these structures were very primitive, and contained many holes, they were enough protection from the mild climate of southern Hungary. Certainly, they were no worse than our usual tents. Gradually, we built a clubhouse, utility sheds, and a mess hall out of the same materials. We laid a sand-covered path in front of the row of living 201

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quarters and installed mushroom-shaped awnings for the duty personnel. Ultimately, the camp managed to take on a genuine military appearance. Life also entered the usual military rut – classes with special combat and political training began, along with the usual schedule and drills. Of course, this required considerable labor from everyone, all the way from unit commanders down to lowly privates. Along the same camp line, the artillerymen and two rifle regiments of the Nth Guards Rifle Division were also quartered right next to us. Soon after, our regiment joined this division and also received its “Guards” designation, along with a new number. Henceforth, we became the 468th Guards Artillery Regiment. Although I was unaccustomed to being addressed as “Comrade Guards junior lieutenant,” I would get used to it. Not far from the camp, beyond the first line, there was an estate that belonged to some count. Apparently, the title of “count” had been in vogue in Hungary. Of course, the count had fled with the Germans, or possibly before they did. Whatever the case, although both the location and the climate dictated that the wheat in his fields be harvested before the end of June, it remained there in the fields, shedding its unharvested grain. When we advised the local residents to harvest the grain before it was too late, all they would say was, “That is not allowed! What will the count say when he returns?” Unable to accept that answer any longer, finally our artillery and infantry commanders in our regiment organized groups of soldiers and local residents, and simply began harvesting the grain ourselves. We then gave the harvested wheat to the local population. They accepted it willingly – after all, now they could not be accused of looting. Nevertheless, this practice did not become widespread, apparently because the higher commands did not approve of this type of initiative. The count’s estate also had a huge vineyard. Every night a group of three or four men from each battery went to get some grapes. They returned carrying a pole on their shoulders, with a groundsheet full of ripe grapes tied to it by the corners. In every cottage, there was a pile of grapes right on the floor, laid out on a spread-out sheet. Everybody stuffed themselves with grapes. We simply could not let the harvest go to waste. Of course, they did not forget their platoon commander either. Although normal military life went on in the camp, everyone still remembered the war quite well, and we could not forget that we were not at home. The soldiers never parted with their weapons, and even at night each one of us had a carbine or a submachine gun within arm’s reach. Duty personnel, who usually only wore a red armband, were now armed just like sentries. In one instance during the middle of the night, two submachine gun bursts rang out near the first row of the camp. Within a minute, soldiers were already running toward the sudden sound, half-dressed, with their white shirts showing in the dark, but armed. It turned out that two Guards 202

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infantrymen, who had been sent to the town on some type of business, were delayed, and asked a local Hungarian with a cart pulled by two horses to give them a ride back to the camp. They approached the camp from the side nearest to the first row. Then, just as they were jumping from the cart, one of them caught the edge of the cart with his PPSh submachine gun. The gun, whose safety had not been set, fired a short burst on its own. The soldier who was on duty at the first row immediately responded by firing a burst from his own submachine gun in the direction of the sounds and flashes of the gunshots. Fortunately, the sentry’s shot in the darkness missed, but one of the stray bullets fired by the arriving soldier pierced the wall of a cottage and lightly wounded a sleeping soldier. Yes, it is true that even an unloaded gun fires at least once a year. During the first half of August 1945, the army’s newspaper, which was named, “Defending the Motherland,” published a short article about how the Americans had dropped a bomb, whose explosive power was equal to 200,000 tons of TNT, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Since the newspaper provided no other details, the article gave rise to numerous arguments. Most often, we tended to think that there had been a typographical error in the newspaper – that they had printed 200,000 tons instead of 20,000 kilograms. Further explanation appeared after about a week had passed – the explosion had been atomic in nature. It is significant, however, that, despite the alliance with the USA, this report about the new powerful weapon in the hands of our allies caused not joy for their success, but uneasiness. Everyone, from semi-literate privates to senior officers, felt the threat hanging over us. There was a railroad not far from Letenye, which extended southward into Yugoslavia. This railroad line crossed the border at the Mura River, 10 kilometers from our camp. Near that river, there was a station named Murakeresztúr, or “Mura Crossing” in Hungarian. By the end of the summer during 1945, relations between the USSR and Yugoslavia had worsened. While even now the causes of this deteriorating relationship are subject to differing interpretations, back then we knew practically nothing about the entire matter. While conducting training in our camp, we began planning field exercises, which involved the deployment of our guns into positions in the direction of Murakeresztúr, and the field exercise plans assigned our units the objectives of either defending “our” bank of the Mura River or supporting a forced crossing of the river. We could not, however, observe the trains moving on the other side of the border. This incident ended when the Yugoslavians blew up the railroad bridge across the Mura River near Murakeresztúr. On August 9, 1945, we heard a radio broadcast reporting that fighting had begun against Japanese forces in the Far East. That afternoon, we attended a regimental meeting, during which Lieutenant Colonel 203

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Korshunkov, the regimental commander, Major Nikanor Ivanovich Kushch, his deputy, and other comrades delivered speeches. The general mood reflected a readiness to join the fight. Spontaneously, many soldiers began submitting requests to be transferred to the active army in the Far East. I too submitted such a request. The next day the division command explained to us that, within three months after our Victory over Germany, enough forces had already been sent to the Far East. Therefore, there was no need to send additional forces, and everything would be over there before we could get there. As we found out later, the troop movements to the East had begun even before the European war ended, soon after the Baltic fronts were “freed up” to go to the region. That is how it was. Today, half a century later, “Minister of Defense” Pasha Grachev has urgently requested that even naval infantry from the Pacific Fleet be sent to Chechnia! It was indeed a remarkable fact that soldiers who had emerged from four hard and long years of combat in one war yearned to enter battle in the Far East for their Soviet Motherland. While all of this was occurring, Sergeant Major Lupekin continued leading his amateur performers. His specialty was still magic tricks, and it must be said that he was fairly professional. On one occasion, a local traveling magician who performed tricks in the same genre as Lupekin, visited the camp and gave a performance. As was customary, during the performance, he invited (more properly put, dared) someone from the audience to trick him in front of everyone. Of course, the soldiers “slipped” him Lupekin. Subsequently, the hapless visitor was absolutely amazed that not a single one of his tricks worked. Finally, taking pity on the man and his equipment, Lupekin admitted what was going on and showed him his own program. The performance ended very well; both the audience and the initially scared magician were happy, and the two magicians ended up sharing their experiences. For one of his performances, with the help of craftsmen from our own automotive and artillery repair shops, Lupekin constructed a magic box, a rather large one approximately half a cubic meter wide and painted in bright colors and various Oriental motifs (with palm trees, mosques, camels, etc.). Everything Lupekin placed in this box mysteriously disappeared, and, at the same time, other things appeared in the box from seemingly nowhere, all of this despite the fact that anyone who wished to could inspect the box carefully before each trick. The most interesting thing about this whole affair was that, thereafter, Lupekin and his team from the regimental rear services used this special box as a counter in the military trade organization’s shop. As had occurred during real performances, scarce goods like soldiers’ handkerchiefs and tobacco pouches steadily disappeared into that special box. If you could not find these items during a performance, it was even less likely you could do so in the shop. 204

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Two months had passed since war’s end, but I had still not been able to re-establish communications with my family. No one knew my address, and the letters to my parents and my brother, which I sent to their former addresses, received no reply. Then a fortuitous accident assisted me in making those contacts. In accordance with a regular schedule, all of the regiment’s units assigned privates and non-commissioned officers to work in the division’s communications center, which was also responsible for handling the field mail. When my platoon’s turn to provide this help finally arrived, I sent my radio operator, Kostia Shalaev, and someone from among my telephone operators to work at the communications center. The next day they returned with a letter addressed to me at Field Post Office 51511, E.D. Moniushko. Someone had written a note across the address in a blue pencil, which read, “The addressee has departed.” It turned out that one of the duties of my two comrades was to help sort the incoming and outgoing mail. Quite by accident, my men noticed the familiar name on the address on this soldier’s “triangle” [soldiers’ letters were written on small triangular-shaped notes]. The letter was from my brother Tolia. Somehow or other he had found my address, and he had written to me. If it had not been for the attentiveness of my comrades, the letter would have been sent back, and we would not have been able to establish communications. My attempts to find out who scribbled on my “triangle” with the blue pencil were unsuccessful, although, to tell the truth, I did not try very hard to find him. The important thing for me was the simple fact that the letter had arrived, and besides, going by several hints in Tolia’s letter, I realized that we were not very far from each other. Major Metelitsa, the regimental chief of staff, whom I turned to for help, provided me with a good piece of advice – to go to the army’s headquarters, where they must have maintained data about field post office numbers, military unit designations corresponding to them, and their true locations. After receiving a favorable response to my request for the regimental headquarters to help me find my brother, for the first time, I set out on a trip across Hungary alone. Since I had been living in a camp that was far distant from any major cities or towns, I lacked any knowledge about life in the surrounding area. Here, I quickly learned, things were not the same as they had been in Czechoslovakia. The Hungarians were not as sociable as the Czechs, and they were all somewhat wary of Russians. It seemed to me that, rather than being a reflection of unfriendliness, this attitude reflected their apprehension over our possible hostility toward them – after all, Hungary had been an ally of Germany, and had broke off its relations with Germany long after all of Germany’s other former allies. Leaving the regiment’s camp, I finally had an opportunity to see 205

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Figure 5.2 My movements in Hungary (1:200,000 scale) (drawn by E. Moniushko).

something of that country, which was completely unfamiliar to me. My first impressions were essentially only external. From my very first glance at it, the nearby town of Nagykanizsa, which would later become our winter quarters, left a strange impression on me. Although I would later understand this impression, initially it seemed 206

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strange that no industry could be seen in a town of 40,000 residents. All I could observe in the town was a railroad station, a grain elevator and associated mill, a food concentrate factory for canning vegetables, and a beer brewery. All of this small-scale production, I thought to myself, was certainly incapable of providing much employment. “What were the rest of the people doing?” I asked. “Could they be only involved in trade?” It was while we were living in this region that I encountered inflation for the first time. According to established regulations, while stationed with their units outside the USSR’s borders, officers serving in our army were supposed to receive part of their salary in local currency, and the remainder was transferred to our personal account in the USSR’s State Bank, and remained there until we returned home to claim it. I do not recall exactly what percentage of our pay we received on the spot, but it seemed to have been about 25 percent, which, according to the official exchange rate, amounted to 6,000 pengos for a platoon commander. Because of the wartime destruction, however, after war’s end prices rose at a tremendous rate. I learned that this was so during the trip across Hungary. Inflation had just begun, and my entire monthly salary was sufficient to purchase only a single kilogram of fruit, which, at that time, was extremely cheap in Hungary. Therefore, it was a good thing that my field bag contained a basic supply of regimental food. It was also most fortunate that we did not have to pay for our transportation – all means of transportation were free for us. The headquarters that was my destination was located in the village of Balatonfüred, on the shore of Lake Balaton, which was also called “The Hungarian Sea.” In terms of distance, it was about a 12-kilometer walk from the camp at Letenye to Nagykanizsa, then another 90 kilometers along the railroad from Nagykanizsa to Siofok Station, and yet another 10 kilometers on a motorized ferry across the lake to Balatonfüred. The beaches of Lake Balaton were a prime vacation destination in Hungary. I had never been to such places before. Even later, when I visited the Crimea, I saw an entirely different picture. Here, instead of large sanatorium complexes and resort buildings, there were only villas, cottages of fantastic design and construction, and occasional small vacation houses, which rose above the lake and were reflected in the lake’s calm water. All along the shore, people were bathing in waters warmed by the hot sun, and small yachts were darting about to such an extent that, long before reaching the pier, the ferry had to reduce its speed to a minimum. When the ferry reached the plank dock, the heat became even worse – it was far better out on the water. When looking at the sunbathers and those flailing about in the water, which was quite muddy near the shore, I suddenly felt the urge to do what I had done in former times by showing these people that we too could swim. But how could I simply abandon my clothes, my documents, and my 207

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weapons on a strange beach in someone else’s country without having someone look after them? And so, with everyone around almost stark naked and while stepping over people’s legs, a Soviet junior lieutenant, dressed in a buttoned-up, sweaty, and faded tunic and similar pants tucked into the almost new (at least from a sergeant major’s perspective) tarpaulin [canvas] boots (with a hole in one of them from a stray bullet), with a belt and a holster tightly wound around him, walked dashingly on the beach. There were no separate identifiable villages along the beach. Instead, the houses and other buildings extended endlessly to the left and right, only conditionally subdivided into the so-called separate towns of Balatonfüred, Balatonboglar, Tihany, and many others. I settled matters at the headquarters quickly, efficiently, and without any procrastination, so rapidly, in fact, that I even managed to catch the ferry’s return trip across the lake. I flew back as if on wings – in my pocket I had a note with the name of the formation and unit where my brother was serving, the 25th Artillery Penetration Division’s 48th Heavy Mortar Brigade, and also the place where the brigade was quartered, in Hungary, in the town of Devecser. Remembering those days, I cannot but feel eternally grateful to those senior comrades, commanders, and staff officers, all who treated the completely personal request of a junior lieutenant with such understanding. They could easily have brushed the request aside, justifying their response by saying that what I wanted to know was secret and, therefore, forbidden information. Moments such as this one made you feel that, instead of being an isolated individual, you were part of a single collective united by a common task, and that the address “comrade,” which was required by regulations, was an accurate reflection of our relations rather than merely an empty formality. Even if exceptions did occasionally exist, they did not negate this genuine “comradely” relationship among us. “Hard in training, easy in battle.” This old truism, which originated with its author, General Suvorov, is well known and understandable to anyone who has served in combat. And even though very little time had passed after the Victory, after war’s end, the “army of victors” once again prepared for new battles. Regular exercises began immediately after the construction of our main camp had been completed. In some cases, this training began even before this work was finished. For example, during the breaks in unit maintenance work caused by material shortages and other problems, we spent considerable time on combat and political training. The various staffs planned exercises and the batteries drew up their own training schedules, which involved eight hours of training per day, including four hours of political work per week. The platoon and squad commanders supervised most of this training. We had to prepare a training plan for each and every class and the immediate superior of the officer 208

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Figure 5.3 The Gabor Aron Camp in Nagykanizsa, where the 113th Guards Rifle Division’s regiments were stationed. A 1936 monument to Hungarian pilots is on the left (drawn by E. Moniushko).

conducting the class approved each plan. The training program included various drills, military regulations, weapons and equipment, topography, tactics, communications, and firing service. Therefore, I had to extract from my memory all that still remained since my days and weeks at the academy. Frequently, training in specialized subjects simply turned into an exchange of combat experiences. After all, many of those receiving the training had amassed more experience than their teachers. However, while we had to fully exploit the soldier’s wealth of experience, we had to be careful to maintain control over our subordinates, who often tended to overestimate the importance of their own experiences. As a rule, while the soldiers tended to be experienced in only one area, they were not as good as their commander in other things. The closer the classes came to actual practice, the more interest they aroused. It seemed as if the soldiers would already be sick of all of that orientation, laying of communications, deploying their guns into positions, and the such. However, this was not the case. It seemed as if many derived pleasure from these routine acts, were proud of their skills, and were saddened by their mistakes. Although entirely understandable, the negative effects derived from anticipation of their impending demobilization were noticeable only among the oldest soldiers. 209

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Regiments deployed in foreign lands could not afford to lose their fighting trim and constant readiness for combat. That was why, in coordination with the local Hungarian administration, they designated places where we could conduct live artillery firing. We were allocated a firing area along the southwestern edge of Lake Balaton. The lake’s banks in those parts were flat, low, and covered with reeds, and the lake itself was becoming overgrown by plants “from the old days.” In these places, you had to cross several kilometers of swampy terrain in order to reach open water. The closer you came to the water’s edge, the more noticeably the layer of soil oscillated under your feet – the entire region was practically floating on the water. That floating layer had been formed over tens, or perhaps even hundreds, of years from the interwoven stems and roots of reeds and various other water plants. Over the years, this layer of floating vegetation was covered with windblown dust and became exceedingly dense. Although grass, bushes, sometimes even trees grew on top of it, below it was only water. It was hard to conduct live firing exercises in these places, first and foremost because the dense growth interfered with observation. Since there were no hills, it was also hard to select a suitable observation post. Nor was selecting firing positions easy either. While it was possible to deploy the light ZIS-3 guns, the 122 mm howitzers sunk into the ground. Therefore, it was necessary to construct firing position decks beforehand. However, there was one advantage attached to this region; you could rather easily observe the impact points of the shells. When shells explode on normal ground, the wind would almost immediately carry away or disperse the resulting puff of smoke. Here, however, after the shells penetrated the layer of soil that was oscillating on the water’s surface, the explosions expelled a pillar of water, grass, reeds, and frogs. This narrow shining pillar of water and other debris, which reached 10 meters or more in height, was easily detectable by a telescope site or an aiming circle. Since calculations turned out to be very precise, as if you were using accurate topographical marks, it was a pleasure to observe fire in such a region. Together with the experience of the battery commanders, this circumstance always earned us excellent grades, and, as a result, we were always in a good mood when we returned from firing exercises. The improvised firing range was a rather big one. During each new exercise, we chose firing positions in a new location. We did this both for training purposes, and so that we would not be able to use coordinates we had memorized from previous exercises. We also did this because, on such terrain, it was quite risky to fire from the same spot too often – if you did, the gun might simply sink through the vegetation into the water’s depths. A conflict of sorts did occur during one of these firing exercises. On this occasion, a “local” chose a spot, mowed it clean of reeds, and started 210

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growing vegetables and some other things at that location. He worked on his plot with a horse and a small plow, which, apparently, he had built himself, and he ignored all of our warnings and refused to leave his “land.” Knowing the nature of shell explosions, which posed no particular danger to the man, after giving it some thought, the battalion commander ordered the battery to open fire. But accidents do occur! Either because the fuse had been set on fragmentation instead of HE by mistake, or because the shell struck some hard spot on the ground, after the very first shot, the Hungarian ran up to our observation post with a bloodied hand. A small shell fragment had struck him at a distance of about 250–300 meters from the shell’s point of impact. The wounded “farmer,” however, did not have any particular complaints; he only wanted first aid. The battalion medic then dressed his wound professionally. Since the fragment had gone straight through his hand, it did not have to be taken out. The soldiers brought his horse and all his things back to him, and this incident was settled rather amicably. Since we participated in firing exercises at that Balaton range, as well as many other places around the lake, many times – at my count, on no fewer than ten occasions – this meant that we fired on almost a monthly basis. And if we conducted exercises successfully and received a good grade, as a reward, each time the battalion commander would permit us to make a two-hour stop in the town of Keszthely on our way back. This was a unique place with a lake formed from hot mineral springs. Of course, rather than being interested in the mineral waters, we looked forward to the opportunity to swim, since bathing and swimming where our firing range was located on the swampy shores of the Balaton was out of the question. We could even bathe during the winter in Keszthely. The lake at Keszthely appeared to be about 500 ⫻ 300 meters in size and was fed by hot springs of varying intensity. Therefore, the lake’s temperature in different spots fluctuated from ⫹25°C to ⫹70°C. Health resorts, bathing houses, and rafts with dressing rooms and awnings were located on the lake’s shores, and, here and there, out on the lake’s surface. Apparently, all of these facilities were very old, since the wood was blackened, and there was a coating of some kind of salt on all hard surfaces sticking out of the water. It was especially pleasant to bathe here during the winter, when snow was piled all around us, and steam rose from the water. It was, however, quite difficult to swim – the overly warm water tired you out and it was difficult to breathe because of the abundant vapors. Therefore, we had to be careful, and, in addition, avoid swimming to places that were too warm, so that we would not be “boiled” in the water. However, you could always climb onto a raft to rest. We continued this “tradition” of visiting this special lake after our firing exercises even after another officer replaced Captain Shliakhov as our battalion commander. 211

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There is a poem written about the final days of the war and about how the victors saluted their Victory, which reads: The tanks and infantry were shooting, and, opening his mouth in a shout, for the first time in the past four years, the quartermaster was firing his Walther. Actually, there were many officers who had never used their sidearm in a combat environment, not only among the quartermasters, but also among the frontline artillery officers. In fact, the majority of the officers had no skills whatsoever in employing that type of weapon. During the end of July or the beginning of August 1945, Captain Shliakhov assembled all of the battalion’s officers. It turned out to be an impressive team of about 25 men and including: the battalion commander himself; his deputy commander (I do not recall his name); Nikolai Sevast’ianovich Klimchenko, the political officer; Captain Mikhailov, the chief of staff; Senior Lieutenants Aleksandr Romanov and Makhno, the chiefs of reconnaissance and communications; Senior Lieutenant Pindiurin and Lieutenant Perfil’ev, the artillery and automotive technicians; Junior Lieutenant Ivan Pykhtin, the battalion’s Party organizer; Senior Lieutenants Vladimir Gavrilenko, Vasilii Fedorovich Metel’skii, and Mikhail Ivanovich Malyshev, the three battery commanders; Senior, Junior, and simply Lieutenants Andrei Prokof’evich Shutrik, Kuznetsov, Fedor Shcherbenko, Ivan Nikitovich Antonenko, and Epishin, the platoon commanders; myself, Evgenii Moniushko; and several other comrades. After forming up his special “Guard,” Shliakhov led us to a forest ravine, where they had already prepared and mounted paper targets corresponding to the number of officers in the party. After forming us up in a line 25 meters away from the target, the commander explained the rules of the exercise. We each had 50 shots at the target. A score of less than 25 hits (out of a possible 50) was poor, 25 to 29 was satisfactory, 30 to 34 was good, and 35 or higher was excellent. The shots rang out and the results were astounding. Only three of the men received a grade above “poor.” Chief of staff Mikhailov and artillery technician Pindiurin received a score of “good,” and the platoon commander of the 2nd Battery’s headquarters, Moniushko, received a score of “satisfactory” (a score of 26). After we achieved such outstanding results, they introduced daily aiming exercises (without ammunition), and they also periodically conducted controlled live fire exercises. The majority of the officers did manage to improve their scores dramatically. In my case, I was surprised by my relative success. After all, discounting several shots I had taken with a revolver back at the academy, I had almost no experience with firing a handgun. This must have been a result of my extensive rifle training during 212

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pre-war times, when I had even participated in inter-school rifle competitions in Leningrad’s October District. Of course, this “success” did not satisfy me and, besides doing the required exercises, I also took certain steps of my own. The ammunition stocks in my platoon were practically unlimited after the war ended. We had not turned in everything that remained in our soldiers’ knapsacks and anyone who was armed with a submachine gun had at least one box of ammunition (720 rounds). Since the PPSh submachine gun and the TT [Tokarev] pistol used the same ammunition, I used every available opportunity to practice. I usually shot at various types of small objects at varying distances rather than standard targets. When inflation finally reduced the money we were receiving to virtually no value, I often used these colored bank notes as my targets. I found out that one of the reasons the TT handgun missed the target was its rather tight trigger mechanism. I then took time to adjust it by bending the trigger spring and filing down the trigger. Thereafter, pulling the trigger became far easier, and my shooting a lot more successful. I would remind the readers, however, that any experiments with firearms should be conducted with care, to avoid unforeseen and often unpleasant consequences. For example, after one of my experiments, my handgun suddenly began firing only in disconcerting bursts, and it took considerable work to correct this unfortunate situation. While my familiarity with handguns and my ability to use them measurably increased my confidence when I had to be away from my units and comrades, the gun’s awkward and uncomfortable canvas holster caused me considerable trouble. First of all, it had an ungainly external appearance. More importantly, however, its design, the properties of the material out of which it was made, and the way it was sewn made it difficult and uncomfortable to pluck the gun out of its holster, even during training exercises. That’s why I began carrying my sidearm in the pocket of my uniform. A handgun in the back pocket of my pants was completely invisible, and, with a single movement with my thumb, I was able to draw the gun and neatly fit it into my hand. It must stress here that the regimental command demanded that every officer always have his sidearm with him. They checked for the presence of sidearms during every formation, and those whose holster was empty ended up in trouble. On one occasion, Korshunkov, my regimental commander, noted that I had no holster on my belt and asked sternly, “Why are you unarmed?” “Not so, Comrade Colonel! I am armed!” I said as I showed the TT in my right hand. “Very well, let’s see that!” he added. I demonstrated the movement I had practiced, Korshunkov thought about it for a moment, and then said, “Very well!” and moved on. Having received his approval, I returned the TT to my canvas holster. 213

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But once again, I want to warn everyone that every innovation has a drawback. In this case, carrying a handgun in a pocket exposed it constantly to a soldier’s sweat, and very quickly rust would appear on the gun’s surface, particularly on its left side. Then you had to clean and oil the gun far more often. As I have already mentioned, my trip to Balatonfüred was not in vain. While there, I determined the location of the 48th Heavy Mortar Brigade, where Tolia was serving and was quartered. As the bird flies, this town was 150 kilometers from our camp, which had gradually become “attached” to the nearby railroad station of Fitjehazsa rather than the relatively unknown village of Letenye. After resolving the matter with the battery and battalion commanders, the regimental commander granted me permission to travel to Devecser to see my brother. They gave me a three or four day pass. Just as during my previous trip to Balatonfüred, I had to walk from our camp to Nagykanizsa, and then, by transferring, ride trains and vehicles to the area of the towns of Devecser and Papa, where the brigade, as well as the entire artillery division, was encamped. As I was preparing for my trip, I laid out all of the parts of my disassembled handgun on a table in our officer quarters, where I was cleaning and oiling it. A messenger then arrived from headquarters to tell me to go to get the papers necessary for the trip. I ran to the headquarters, where I obtained all of my papers. However, after I returned to my quarters, I found that I could not assemble the handgun because one of its essential parts was missing. As a matter of fact, the entire handgun simply “fell apart” without it. Time was pressing – I would have had to walk fast to reach Nagykanizsa as it was, and now there was a new delay! Judging by the smirks on the faces of two of my buddies – Ivanenko, who lived with me, and Belousov, who had stopped by for a visit, I deduced that they had hid it. Since we were not friendly with Belousov, I seriously doubted whether he would play such a trick on me as that. Therefore, it had to be Antonenko! I started pressing him, explaining that time was running out, and if I was late for the train, my trip would fail. All I received in response was a nasty smirk. I was so wound up by the forthcoming meeting with my brother and the very real possibility of its failure, that I could not hold myself in check. I punched Ivan on the jaw so hard that he tumbled over the bed. They “found” the missing part immediately, and within one more minute, I was already hastily walking along a forest footpath. About a kilometer later I calmed down, began feeling guilty, and realized that I had done something quite wrong. I really felt bad – I had struck my comradein-arms, a junior lieutenant just like me. Antonenko was quite surprised when he saw me return several minutes later. We shook hands, and I 214

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rushed out again. Now, having lost 15 more minutes, I had no choice but to run part of the way. I did, however, manage to catch the train. What had been advertised as 150 kilometers in a straight line, in reality turned out to be over 300 kilometers because the trains did not yet use the shortest route. I had to ride around Lake Balaton and transfer trains at the town of Székesfehérvar. The train from Nagykanizsa to Székesfehérvar was a passenger train, but we “occupiers” did not need tickets since all trains had to have special cars for military personnel. I tried to find this car at the station. My limited knowledge of Hungarian was sufficient to ask, “Where’s the soldiers’ car?” Surprisingly enough, since it turned out that there were no such cars in this train, they offered me a place in a staff car. The staff car was only a regular freight car painted green, so that it would not stand out among the passenger cars. Inside it had benches along the walls and a kerosene lamp above the door, but there was no stove because it was summertime. The train was either “crawling” or simply standing for long periods at every railroad station. The conductors from the entire train soon assembled in the staff car to talk. About halfway to my destination, when the picturesque Tihany Peninsula on the other side of Lake Balaton became visible through the car’s open left door, a chorus of 15–20 railroad workers formed in the car. All of them were in uniform, dressed with tall caps and with flags hanging in cases on their belts. Led by one of the workers, all of the others sat down, organized neatly according to their voices. Those the leader did not know, presumably because they were new members of the crew, he tested their voices and showed them to their proper place. They all sang without sheet music, but with a conductor. To my unprofessional eyes (or rather, ears), the concert was excellent. While they had a varying repertoire, they sang primarily folk songs, including one to the tune of our song, “Mother Volga,” which was about a Russian girl named Razin. At the time, I was too shy to ask why they were singing a Russian song, but later on the Hungarians informed me that it was a genuine Hungarian folk melody, but the Russians had supposedly adopted it, putting in the words about Razin. It grew dark outside the car, but the lamp wasn’t lit, and, in the semidarkness, I wanted to listen to the harmonious singing to the very end. And then we arrived in Székesfehérvar where I had to transfer to another train, which, as it turned out, would depart only in the morning of the following day. Thus, I had to wait for more than half a day. Since I was too wary to wander alone around an unknown city during the night, I settled down in the empty waiting room of the railroad station. Soon a senior lieutenant came by, who was apparently also waiting for his train. We began a conversation and soon learned that both of us had to spend the night in the city. He then suggested we go to a hotel. He said he was somewhat familiar with the city, but he didn’t want to leave the station alone. I 215

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agreed, and so we walked together through the streets. On the way, I warned my fellow traveler that my pockets were almost empty, and, most probably, I would not have enough money for the hotel. He replied, “Not a problem, I have money!” “But how will I pay you back later?” I responded, “I doubt that we will ever meet again.” “Remember this, Junior Lieutenant!” he added, “If not me, you’ll undoubtedly pay someone else back. That is how it will be!” We spent that night in a hotel, parted in the morning, and never saw each other again. From that time forth, I considered myself in debt, and will try to pay back to those whom I encounter the rest of my life. And I pass on the same sage advice, “Pay back someone else, if not me.” I think it is quite clear how my accidental fellow traveler would have reacted to the words of the so-called “President of Russia,” who during a recent New Years address to the people, called upon them to “live for themselves and not for others.” I exited my final train at the railroad station at Janoshaza, which was about 20 kilometers from Devecser. Of course, there was no transportation available, but this was no problem. I was used to that. I reached the camp of the 25th Artillery Division in the evening. When I arrived at the artillery camp, the first thing I noticed was the whiteness of the camp’s tents. Usually they were either green or the yellow–gray color of unpainted canvas. It was indeed quite strange since they could not have washed them at a laundry! Here and there between the tents, I could see the figures of soldiers dressed in white or blue uniforms, almost like the police. Approaching a group of officers sitting at the entrance to one of the tents, I asked how to find Junior Lieutenant Moniushko. One of them looked at me and replied, “That’s me. What do you want?” I must admit that the thought flashed through my mind that Tolia had changed so much that I could not recognize him, especially since there was nothing familiar about his face, and uniforms, in general, make everyone looks somewhat alike. However, his tone of voice and the comment, “What do you want?” told me it was only a prank. “Don’t play with me!” I said. “I’m looking for my brother.” Instantly, those words changed everyone’s tone and demeanor. They invited me to sit down, summoned a messenger, and ordered him to find Anatolii, wherever he might be. We finally met one another several minutes later – after a long two-and-a-half years. Conversations and endless reminiscences followed. Meanwhile, Tolia’s comrades, who on the one hand were expressing their friendship, and, on the other, were exploiting the opportunity as an unexpected excuse for another party, organized a celebratory dinner for us. Of course, a combination of frontline habits, Hungarian customs, and 216

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the presence of this excuse generated a large number of bottles of wine. Because of this, or perhaps my exhaustion after a day-and-a-half on the road, I recall few details of that night. The next day Tolia and I strolled around in our scenic surroundings, admiring Somlo Mountain, an almost perfect 435-meter cone covered with a “coat” of vineyards towering 250 meters above the surrounding country. We also investigated a nearby German artillery testing range. It was no accident that the 25th Artillery Penetration Division was located near Devecser because the Germans maintained an artillery proving ground in the area, where they tested the performance of their shells against various defensive structures, including reinforced concrete walls with various steel fittings. Test samples in the form of reinforced concrete cubes about 2.5 meters on the side were all around. One of these cubes had been shattered to pieces as the result of an impact from a 203 mm howitzer shell, which had been fired during trials conducted by the artillerymen of our 25th Artillery Penetration Division. The only remains of this cube were its spiral, spring-like steel reinforcements. Since there was a photographer in one of the villages near the camp, Tolia “organized” a photo session. That was the first post-war photo of when we were together. At this time, however, although they had awarded me my decoration some time ago, I had still not received my order. Therefore, Tolia borrowed the “star” from a comrade so that I could wear it in the photo. I really did look quite nice in this photo because, just before leaving on this trip, I had received and put on a brand new uniform made from thin wool gabardine (as they jokingly said, “A gift from the English Queen to the officers of the Army of Victors”). However, time flew by too fast; and since I could not stay another night at Devecser, we agreed that Tolia would soon visit our camp at Fitjehazsa. I went out onto the nearby highway, flagged down a car with three Hungarians riding in it, and after they agreed to let me ride with them, I stuffed myself into a free seat. No one said a single word throughout the entire ride. The only other thing I recall about that trip is that, all the way to the railroad station at Janoshaza, I did not take my hand out of my pocket, which contained the loaded handgun with its safety on. In addition to my first post-war meeting with Tolia, this trip was also significant because I obtained the addresses of both my parents, who were still at Biisk, as it turned out, and also Mother’s sister Aunt Galia and her husband Fedor Ivanovich. Thereafter, I began communications with my family without any further interruptions. But I do need to provide an explanation about those white tents and blue uniforms, which I previously mentioned, especially since other such “anomalies” in various forms were evident in almost all of our army’s units in Hungary. The explanation, it seems, is rather simple. As soon as the fighting was over in early May 1945, the authorities canceled the army’s 217

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Figure 5.4 The 25th Artillery Penetration Division’s camps in Hungary (drawn by E. Moniushko).

wartime supply quotas and, instead, created new peacetime supply quotas. While this was not very apparent with regard to our food supplies, which remained adequate, it was very noticeable with regard to our uniforms, where the situation worsened. All of the uniforms we received in early 1945 were already severely tattered from the fighting by war’s end and already required replacement by mid-May. However, new uniforms were not available. This occurred because the authorities diverted much of the country’s clothing resources to the newly liberated regions, which had been ravaged by the war, and also sent a large number of uniforms to the Far East, where fighting was still under way. As a result, soldiers in the army’s groups of forces in central Europe walked around in rags. Even officers sometimes wore “handsome” boots sewn from ground sheets by soldier craftsmen rather than the required leather or at least canvas boots. In order to avoid being accused of violating the uniform code, we “painted” the green canvas from which we made these boots with black shoe polish and cleaned them until they shined. I must admit that these boots were not bad at all, and not unsuited for the Hungarian climate – they were not too hot, and it was quite easy to walk about in them. However, they did not last very long. As I already mentioned, the officers were “luckier” in that regard since, just after the war ended, they had received brand new uniforms as “a gift from the English” (as they said, “from the Queen”). Of course, even though the authorities listed these new uniforms on our clothing ration cards as “regular distribution,” they were still a new set. However, the 218

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situation with regard to clothing was much worse with regard to the privates and non-commissioned officers. There were simply no replacements for worn-out uniforms or footwear. And soon, the battery and company commanders added new columns to the personnel rosters that regulations required they submit to headquarters. In addition to the existing columns, which routinely categorized the presence or absence of personnel as “listed,” “sick,” “present for duty,” “on leave,” and so on, new columns appeared with such headings as, “Without boots,” “Without greatcoats,” “Without pants,” and so on. For example, only half of the soldiers in our regiment were fully uniformed. Therefore, when a battery or a battalion marched out of camp on exercises, either in formation or in column, the commanders routinely placed the fully uniformed soldiers in the formation’s front and back ranks and the column’s left and right files. The closer one came to the middle of the formation or the column, the lower was the so-called “uniform coefficient.” Often the men in the center of the formation marched in their slippers and underwear, although they were recognizable as soldiers since everyone carried a submachine gun or carbine, and a gas mask, telephone, radio, telescope, aiming circle, or binoculars. The locals were astonished when they observed such an army, and probably asked themselves, “How could this army without footwear or pants have routed Hitler’s vaunted Wehrmacht?” The deplorable situation with uniforms required commanders to act forcefully and imaginatively. For example, the 25th Artillery Penetration Division made excellent use of a stockpile of trophies [captured goods] obtained from former German airborne forces, which had been stationed nearby. The artillerymen used cargo parachutes from this stockpile to construct camp tents. In addition, although we used most of the parachute materials to transport cargo in our trucks, for a certain price, the locals would sew uniforms for the soldiers made from the same captured synthetic parachute silk. The next problem was with the color of the new uniforms, which was obviously a blinding white. Since they lacked any way to paint these white uniforms green, they made a deal with local Gypsies to have them dyed blue. Those were the “police-type” uniforms that we observed when we arrived. However, this solution worked only until the first rain. Since the artificial silk did not really absorb the Gypsy’s blue pigment, when it rained the blue pigment simply ran on to the soldiers’ back and shoulders dying them a vivid blue color. By this time, however, there was no one they could to complain to, since the Gypsy camp had already migrated somewhere else. Perhaps it was the same Gypsy camp that made spoons for the soldiers in our regiment. One of our commanders came up with the excellent idea of using “government” regulation spoons in the mess hall for the lower 219

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ranks, instead of the soldiers’ own spoons, which each soldier habitually carried in his boots. But how then would you find enough spoons for the entire regiment? Major Revzin, our chief of rear services, came up with an answer. He made a deal with the ever-present Gypsies, who were not only roaming around Bessarabia but also all of Europe, to cast new spoons out of salvaged aluminum. The primary source of this aluminum was the remains of shot down aircraft. Although they used the traditional Russian wooden spoon as the model for their design, they simplified the design of the new spoon significantly for the sake of easier production. The resulting object, which they termed a spoon, had a completely straight 15-centimeterlong and 10-millimeter wide handle and a strictly semi-circular scooped end with an external diameter of 60 millimeters and a thickness of 4–5 millimeters. While the Revzin-model spoon could also serve as an extra weapon, its main use was as a target for jokes made by the regiment’s most witty soldiers. While we successfully settled the burning issue of spoons, we were not so fortunate with the uniform situation, primarily because we were not able to find and stockpile parachutes in our vicinity. The situation became especially bad in the fall of 1945 when the mass discharge of older soldiers began. We needed uniforms first because regulations prohibited us from sending naked soldiers back to the Motherland. In addition, we needed uniforms because the soldiers were going back to a country that had been ruined by the war and it was also clear that they would have to wear their army uniform, without the shoulder boards, for a long time to come. Frequently, we had to take the more-or-less serviceable uniforms and footwear away from the soldiers who were remaining in service and give them to those who were leaving for home. First of all, of course, we “undressed” all of the young replacements, which had already begun arriving. While this often caused discontent, we had no other choice but to do so. Since he did not have the right to order us to do this, the regimental commander “asked” the officers to give up their greatcoats, which were often in a little better shape than the ones the lower ranks possessed, to those soldiers who were leaving. This is how Private Vikentii Sabynich, my platoon scout, left for his home in Lithuania wearing my greatcoat. It was especially difficult to find uniforms and other clothing for the soldiers in my gun platoons, most of whom were unusually tall and strong. There were even instances when we had to delay their discharge because it was not possible to dress them properly. Since the soldiers who were returning home usually rode in entire trains rather than singly or in small groups, those who remained behind due to the shortages of uniforms had to wait for the formation of another entire group. Although everyone understood very well that they were going back to the hard labor associated with reconstruction and rebirth instead of “heaven,” and that there 220

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might not be shelter or food, everyone yearned to return home. Therefore, every delay was a tragedy. We could not forget those who remained to serve either. While the weather was still warm (and, in southern Hungary, it was warm in October), we immediately began work on the problem of providing adequate winter quarters for the regiment. For example, after negotiations with the local administration, they gave us “Gabor Aron Barracks,” which had served as the camp of some unit in the former Hungarian Army. We allocated these barracks for the lower-ranking soldiers and their equipment. The name, “Gabor Aron LaKtanja,” was painted across the facade of the main building. All of the barrack’s buildings were well preserved, and we managed to settle both the men and their equipment into the building with relative ease. Later, after we returned to USSR, we learned that is was impossible to arrange similar quarters for the troops. Nonetheless, there was little room in the barracks for the regiment’s officers. And, compounding these problems, at the same time, there was talk about permitting the officers’ wives to come to Hungary with their small children. This did not apply to school-age children, however, who were not allowed to join their families in Hungary because of the lack of Russian schools in the region. The command allocated the regiment’s officers a semi-ruined building, which was situated in Nagykanizsa and had several rooms fit to serve as officers’ quarters. However, it required the bulk of the regiment’s officers to be quartered in private residences. They sent groups of billeting officers from every regiment into the town to visit all of the houses in specifically allocated blocks and then arrange deals with the local residents about the possibility of taking on boarders. The town consisted primarily of one- and two-story private houses. So, our task was clear. But, while it is rather easy to say, “Make a deal,” it is far less easy to actually do it. First, none of us knew Hungarian. That is why they selected the billeting officers on the basis of their “ability to put at least two words together in German.” The state language of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire was Austrian (almost the same as German), and the majority of the population could speak it. They assigned me as a billeting officer based on this basic principle. Since this process took more than half a month, the first thing that we did was to locate housing for ourselves. Then, using that as a base, we would begin a “walkthrough” in our assigned sectors each and every morning. At first, we went around in pairs, but later did so alone. As a rule, if their conditions permitted it, the owners of the houses agreed to accept officer-boarders. When agreeing to these arrangements, there were two primary considerations involved. First of all, we promised the owners that, if they accepted boarders, we would obtain and deliver 221

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Figure 5.5 A monument to Soviet soldiers in Nagykanizsa (drawn from a watercolor after war’s end by E. Moniushko).

firewood during the winter. Second, since many of the owners were afraid that robberies, hooliganism, and other crimes would begin after the soldiers returned from the town for their summer encampments, the presence of an officer in the house would provide a certain degree of security in that regard. I should note here that this apprehension was apparently based on some incidents that had taken place during the war. Despite the strict and 222

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harsh orders and control measures to the contrary, cases of looting could well have occurred during that period. However, even though everything was now quite different, the fears and apprehensions remained. For these reasons, the owners of the houses did not require much convincing. The main problem we encountered was the fact that no house owner would begin talking business without the obligatory bottle or carafe of wine appearing on the table. Some even rolled out small kegs, which contained about half a bucket of wine. The most hospitable hosts brought out their best wine – judging by the dated labels attached to them, many of the bottles were years older than me. While Hungarian wine was light, not very strong, and very pleasant to drink, still, still, still . . . Therefore, a significant rest was necessary after conducting conversations in three or four houses. Despite these “obstacles,” the work finally came to an end, and, by the time the camps were ready to go into winter quarters, everything was ready for them. Of course, during our conversations with the “hosts,” we did not actually allocate the negotiated quarters. The battalion and battery commanders were supposed to do that later. First of all, of course, we selected places for ourselves. My partner in this matter was Senior Lieutenant Kuznetsov, whom we called “Kuznetsov the Red,” to differentiate him from another senior lieutenant, who was called “Kuznetsov the Old.” Together with “the Red” and two other billeting colleagues, we assembled in “my” room to celebrate the successful completion of our “operation.” The “hosts” of the apartment were there, together with their daughter and her girlfriend, and someone else. Everyone there knew each other quite well since, over the past two weeks, we had become “like their own” throughout their entire housing area. However, while a billeting officer may select billets, his superiors make the final decisions. In the midst of all of this merriment, some captain with three submachine-gun-wielding soldiers with him suddenly appeared and declared officiously that this particular apartment had been designated for one of the deputies of either the divisional commander or his chief of staff. Although it was senseless to argue and I was very saddened, the girlfriend of the hosts’ daughter said that her mother would be happy to see a Soviet officer in her house. I knew that house and that family, which included an old widow named Husar, her daughter, Rozhika, and her son, Josef. We had not designated this house for “quartering,” since we tried to arrange residence only in houses where the rooms would be somewhat isolated from the owners, and if possible, the household’s conveniences. There were no such conveniences in “Ma” Husar’s house. However, the well-disposed hosts were situated fairly close to the barracks. Therefore, I agreed and “moved” the same evening, since I had few possessions – only my tattered greatcoat and field bag. I am not sorry that I had to leave the better equipped, and, I would 223

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even say, more comfortable apartment, since in this new place I lived as if I were a member of the family. When I returned from a day’s work, a dinner or supper would always be waiting for me. Even though they fed us generally well in the regiment, there was no tasty Hungarian cooking, crammed with as many red peppers [paprikas] as possible, in the regimental mess. By conversing with the hosts, I began learning the Hungarian language, learned many words, and, if required, became able to ask for directions, purchase something, or even arrange some sort of deal with the Hungarians. The hostess’s daughter, Rosa, in Hungarian her familiar name was Rozhika, who worked as a telegraph operator at the railroad station, spent 24-hour shifts on duty and, after returning home from work, instructed me on what I should do to solve her problems with her admirers. It so happened that, practically every warm night, her admirers began serenading her under her window (and therefore, mine as well). And even if the wonderful melodies and soothing voices did not wear you out and did not prevent you from sleeping, they were enough to force you to turn the lights on and off periodically. And if the power was out, which happened quite frequently, we had to light and then blow out matches in front of the window. This was the signal that we accepted the serenade with gratitude and the concert was over. Since the 20-year-old Rozhika was quite attractive, there was no shortage of admirers. So, I had more than enough music and singing. Her 16year-old brother, Josef or simply Ioshka, who was an accomplished loafer who did not study or work anywhere and spent almost no time at home, lived in a village with some relatives, where they had both a vegetable patch and a vineyard. During the last months of the war, when there had been a “total” mobilization in Hungary just as in Germany, Ioshka had been called up into some armed formation, but these soon fell apart under the blows of our forces and because of mass desertions. It seemed to me that Ioshka was afraid due to some trouble he had experienced during that period. Either he feared our side because he did not want to become a prisoner-of-war or he feared the Hungarian authorities since there were still those among them who had collaborated with the Germans, who could pay him back for his desertion from the valiant Hungarian Army. I think these fears explained his almost constant absence. Very often, it was necessary for me to participate in routine housework. After all, there were no other men in the house, and someone was needed to repair the electric iron, replace a broken window, fix a leak in the roof, cut firewood, and do a variety of other things. For doing all of these chores, my “hostess” nicknamed me “Ezermunkash,” which apparently meant “a man of all trades.” Rozhika spent a lot of time looking for the equivalent term in German, which is how we usually conversed, but finally she said that, in Russian, it meant, “a thousand-master.” This conversation 224

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Figure 5.6 E. Moniushko (1) (photograph from E. Moniushko’s private collection).

made me understand that, German was as difficult for her as it was for me. After all, there was the completely appropriate German expression for my work, the word “Tausendmeister,” which, for some reason, she did not think of. I spent the remaining time before my return from Hungary to the USSR in that hospitable house at No. 14 Duke Josef Street in the town of 225

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Nagykanizsa, and, thereafter, I never forgot the superb hospitality of my “hosts.” I have already mentioned that there were several marked inconsistencies between the size of the town’s population and the number of jobs available in the town. At the same time, the number of shops of various types, both large but more often small, was simply amazing. Later I began to understand that, in such small towns, only a portion of the population lived in town, and the remaining people were peasants. Many of these peasants had land where they grew everything they needed for themselves and for sale at the market. Many others, who did not have any land, simply hired themselves out as agricultural workers. The absences of any sizeable industries in the town forced them to do this. I can still recall several pictures of life in Hungary. In the morning, the peasant women went into the town’s market to sell the products from their gardens. In the majority of cases, rather than dragging their goods and carrying them in their hands, they simply carried them on their heads. They stacked several baskets of various sizes, with the larger ones on the bottom and the smaller ones on top, in a pyramid on the tops of their heads, on top of a rather soft padding in the shape of a donut. This entire structure was capped by an upturned stool, on which the seller ultimately sat, waiting for the customers. From the looks of it, the total weight could have reached 2 poods [32–33 kilograms]. The woman could load or unload this weighty structure only with someone’s help, and, in such a configuration, they walked the several kilometers from the village to the town market. Rather than supporting this load, the women balanced it on their heads, with their hands on their waists, like a performer in a circus. The villagers, and particularly the women, did not wear regular dresses and suits, but instead wore various types of national garb. In the case of women, this usually included a large number of skirts, each one worn on top of the other, with the top skirt resembling a sort of open parachute, embroidered with many colorful ornaments. Since they starched these skirts for the holidays, it was virtually impossible for them to sit down. The men tended to wear high boots with closely fitting tops, a wide variety of moustaches, and hats. Despite the heat, on Sundays, they always put on their waistcoats. Village life was not very prosperous. For example, during our marches out to the exercise areas, I often saw large villages where only one or two of the houses had chimneys. These were usually the houses belonging to the village chief and priest. The rest did not have chimneys because of the steep tax on the right to possess a chimney. Since Hungary had been an ally of Germany, it was strange to learn that the Germans had established such a draconian order in an allied country, which even included prohibitions on the planting of tobacco. For example, a person could be arrested for even keeping decorative tobacco 226

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flowers in a window-box garden. As a result, in a country that included many smokers even among the women, all of Hungary suffered through a severe tobacco shortage until the summer of 1946, when a new tobacco crop sown during the first post-war spring finally began to ripen. Apparently, Germany had done this to suppress competition. During the war, while Germany was producing surrogate (erzats) cigarettes from paper soaked in nicotine, it would have been impossible to sell these makeshift cigarettes in Hungary if it was growing its own real tobacco. Those of us who did not smoke derived considerable advantage from this situation. By trading away my tobacco ration (either cigarettes or makhorka), I always had a plentiful supply of grapes, plums, apples, and other delicacies. There were also many churches in the relatively small town of Nagykanizsa, not because of the necessity for simultaneously accommodating all churchgoers, but because of the immense number of differing faiths. There were Catholics, Lutherans, Protestants, Orthodox, and Godonly-knows how many other faiths living in the town. On Sundays you could often observe different members of what was apparently the same family exiting the same house and then split off to attend different churches. But this was fine. Only in heaven would they figure out whose request to send to whose office. They would have dances in the town’s club on Saturday evenings and both during the day and in the evenings on Sundays. And there were no audio recordings or any technology at all at these dances. Instead, live bands with violins, violas, contrabasses, accordions, and some wind instruments always played. The club hall was large and spacious, with balconies from which you could observe what was going on down below. Since I did not know how to dance, I usually established an “OP” on the balcony. According to local custom, you could approach any dancing couple during the middle of a dance and ask the lady’s permission to dance. And it was considered most impolite to refuse the request. However, the partner who gave up his lady could repeat the same maneuver after only half a step, and the lady would return to him. The unfamiliarity of our comrades with these rules, or rather, their unwillingness to follow them, often led to open conflict. By watching the dancing from above, it was quite easy to note that the girls who danced well and were pretty could not even complete a half a circle with one partner before their competitors would unavoidably intercept them. However, this did not sadden them; on the contrary, if she was “intercepted” often, this was a cause of pride for them but envy for others. While our young officers actively familiarized themselves with the territory of the dancing hall, they only danced when the band was playing familiar waltzes, foxtrots, or a tango. As soon as a Hungarian folk melody began, however, all of the dancers wearing shoulder boards would “retreat” to the nearby walls. Then three or four couples (rarely more) 227

Figure 5.7 E. Moniushko and a comrade (photograph from E. Moniushko’s private collection).

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would come out to the freed-up area and start making such daring dancing moves that it was simply breathtaking. The band would steadily increase the tempo of the music it was playing, and, in the end, the girls wrapped their arms around their partners, who spun around them without touching the floor, almost horizontally, so that every couple needed a circle 3–4 meters in diameter to dance. This looked very beautiful from the top balcony, especially when the dancers wore bright suits and dresses, and it seemed as if colored tops were spinning. Our men, however, did not dare to participate in these special Hungarian dances. Then there was the wine, which played a constant role in the everyday Hungarians’ way of life. They drank it in place of water to quench their thirst, they drank it to extinguish food fiery from the abundance of paprika, they drank it during holidays, and they drank it on other sundry occasions. However, regardless of the occasion, they always seemed to know their limit. A peasant, leaving for the field, would take some food with him and, instead of water, wine – and not in a bottle, but usually in a light flask made from a pumpkin. The pumpkin destined to become a flask was tied with rope while it was still growing and gradually assumed the required shape. Then the ripe pumpkin was dried, its middle was cleaned out, and the flask was ready. They said wine stayed cooler in it. With the same purpose in mind – to get a cooler drink – they drank from the flask by holding it by its neck, raising it in their outstretched hands, tipping it back, and catching the sweet wine in their mouths. They would take two or more liters with then for a full workday out in the fields. The rather warm Hungarian climate allowed homeowners to keep smaller stoves. In the house where I lived, we made do with a small castiron stove, whose smoke went out to the chimney through a tin pipe similar to that on a samovar. Nevertheless, even with such small stoves, the women managed to bake round breads of tremendous diameter, which they would carry on top of their heads in the same fashion as their baskets of fruit. From afar, each woman carrying bread looked like a mushroom with a large brown hat walking down the street. Of course, these mental pictures capture only a small part of what I actually saw or experienced. Unfortunately, I have forgotten much of what I experienced, and, a half-a-century later, I have been able to record only a few fragments that remain etched in my memory. I met with my brother Tolia two more times during our service in Hungary. During the fall of 1945, Tolia came to our regiment when we were still located in the camp at Fitjehazsa. By that time, it was easier to reach me since passenger train services had resumed on the railroad line near the camp. Tolia spent two days visiting with me, and the entire regiment greeted him very warmly. With a certain degree of luck, we also managed to have our picture taken together. While hurrying to expedite the manufacture of the photographs before Tolia’s departure, the soldier 229

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photographer developed the film during the day-time by covering himself and his developing pan with comrades’ greatcoats. As a result, traces of accidental exposure are still visible in the pictures. This does remind me of a rather humorous story, which occurred at about the same time. I assigned some sort of task to a soldier who had recently arrived to our regiment and still did not know many of the soldiers in the regiment. After carrying out the assignment, the soldier returned to report to me, but suddenly froze in mid-sentence at the sight of two junior lieutenants instead of one. As my comrades had often told us, there was a lot of similarity between Tolia and me. Although I cannot notice the similarities in photographs, apparently it was not as much in external appearance as in our gestures, voices, and other less tangible qualities. The second time Tolia came to visit me was also in the fall, and, shortly before his departure, he offered me his trophy leather gloves with warm lining. Although I declined, when the train started moving, he threw the gloves to me from the car. It was impossible to return them, and they served me well for three years, if not longer. The third and shortest meeting between Tolia and I was in Devecser, in the winter quarters of the 25th Artillery Penetration Division. I went there sometime during the winter, I think in February. Because of the difficulties with transportation, I had to walk for about 50 kilometers over a snowcovered road, and that, plus my exhaustion, ate up my time. After arriving in Devecser in the evening, I spent the night at Tolia’s house and, by midday the next day, I was already out on the highway trying to flag down a car to carry me back to my camp. The New Year’s celebration on 1946 was indeed memorable, first and foremost since it was the first post-war New Year. For the first time, I attended a general celebration of all of the regiment’s officers. Even though I had already met the majority of my fellow officers, the regiment’s platoon and battery commanders, in officer training sessions and meetings, this was the first time I had spent time in a comradely, friendly holiday atmosphere with them. A table was set for us in the officers’ mess at the Gabor Aron Barracks. The fare seemed very abundant; after all, it was for all of the regiment’s officers, a total of more than 70 men. Since we lacked the traditional fir tree, instead we brought a young pine tree in from the forest and decorated it with strips of colored paper. I had the honor of being the regimental duty officer on that day. Knowing of my negative attitude toward alcohol, the regiment and battalion command often assigned me to such duty on holidays. However, when I reported to the regimental commander on the evening of December 31 to take over my duties, Lieutenant Colonel Korshunkov gave me permission to be present at the celebration at midnight. Not long before midnight, I checked all of the sentries and battery duty personnel and 230

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congratulated each of them, and by midnight I was in the mess. The majority of battery commanders had also just returned from the barracks, where they had wished their soldiers a Happy New Year. Everyone who attended these festivities wore their orders and decorations, and many wore the “Guards” insignia that not everyone had yet received. Precisely at midnight, everyone stood up. Very warmly and in a friendly manner, Korshunkov congratulated everyone there and said, “And now let’s sing our Leningrad song!” In concert, everyone began singing the famous “Leningrad Drinking Song.” It seemed to me that, although there was no leader and everyone sang well, several fine voices stood out, among which was our battalion topographer, Lieutenant Vakulenko. The song captivated everyone, including such young men as me and the other platoon commanders, Antonenko, Belousov, and Shcherbenko. Noticeably, the older experienced comrades, those who had lived through the siege of Leningrad, the Karelian Isthmus, Narva, Tallinn, Prussia, and Silesia, were overcome with emotion. The words to this song, which had served as a virtual anthem for many regiments in the Volkhov and Leningrad Fronts, had been composed right in the forward trenches by a frontline newspaper reporter named Fedor Shubin, whom I had already heard of earlier. But it was in this group of close comrades that I heard such a fine rendition for the first time. More touching still, the anthem was sung by the same people about whom it was written. From their hearts, they sang about themselves and about their comrades who remained in Leningrad forever. The words still touch my heart and soul: We get to meet rarely, friends, But when we do, Let’s remember all that was, and drink as is customary, As it is done in Russia. Let’s remember those who commanded companies, Who died in the snow, Who made their way to Leningrad through the swamps, Crushing the enemy’s throat. Let’s drink to those who spent long weeks Lying in frozen dug-out shelters, Who fought on Lake Ladoga and along the Volkhov, And didn’t retreat a single step. Forever in legends will be renowned. Under the hail of machine gun fire, 231

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Our bayonets on Siniavino Heights, Our regiments at Mga. Let the Leningrad family sit With us at the table. Let’s remember how the Russian soldiers’ power Drove the Germans beyond Tikhvin. Let’s stand up and clink our filled glasses, Remembering comrades-in-arms. Let’s drink for the bravery of those who fell as heroes. Let’s drink for the meetings of those who remain alive. The song finished. Together with my comrades I drank a glass of Hungarian wine and left the hall where the celebration continued until morning. After all, the regiment, with its personnel, barracks, equipment, guns, automobiles, staff, and the sacred Battle Banner of the 9th Leningrad Regiment, was in my charge. Escorted by a soldier with a submachine gun, I walked around the regiment’s camp until morning, periodically looking at the brightly lit windows of the cafeteria. Back then, when combat habits were still strong, the training I had received in battle rather than exercises was still there. As I neared a guard post, but did not yet see the sentry in the dark, suddenly I heard from a direction I didn’t expect, a calm and firm, “Halt! Who goes there?” It was hard to believe that this was a New Year’s Eve – it was calm, overcast, soft rain was falling, the temperature was ⫹12°C, and I was wearing a heavy damp groundsheet instead of a greatcoat. And there was the pleasant feeling of pride and an overwhelming realization of so much responsibility being entrusted by my senior comrades. While minor things are forgotten, only really serious matters remain in our memories. Since I remember all of this quite well, apparently this New Year’s Eve wasn’t such a minor thing. In the fall of 1946, Captain Shliakhov, who commanded our 1st Battalion of the 9th Artillery Regiment during the last months of the war, was transferred to another posting. The battalion was assigned a new commander, Captain Ravil’ Rukhimovich Gazizov. Since we learned the full story associated with his transfer to our regiment much later, I will also describe it later, in its own time. For now, I will write about how Captain Gazizov took charge of the battalion, and how it accepted its new commander. One day late in the fall, when the regiment was already in its winter quarters at Nagykanizsa, a not very tall but very noticeable captain with a round and slightly speckled Tatar face, appeared in the barracks. The rumor that this captain was our new battalion commander had already 232

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made its way through the regiment, and, therefore, from the very first day, the officers and non-commissioned officers, and even privates began going to him on various current matters. Often one encounters people who are so imposing and perhaps even intimidating that, immediately, most people do not dare to approach them. This person, on the other hand, looked simple, approachable, and well disposed. However, whenever anyone addressed, requested, or questioned Gazizov, he always replied in the same fashion – he sent everyone to Captain Mikhailov, the chief of staff. He would say repeatedly, “I need time to understand everything. For now, let Captain Mikhailov, who has been in the battalion for a long time, decide.” Nevertheless, as the battalion commander, Gazizov inspected all of the barracks, all of the storerooms, stockpiles, and the artillery and motor vehicle parks. But, while he checked the order, he didn’t make any comments, but instead noted everything. Finally, after two weeks, he began to act, but not in an ordinary manner. He assigned Sergeant Major Zherdev of the 2nd Battery the first task – to find a good wood plane and other carpenter’s tools. It should be noted that, when moving into winter quarters, the sergeants major of the batteries built shelving to store various things in the quarters assigned to them as storerooms. This shelving, which was similar to shelves we constructed in dugouts in a combat environment and reflected our usual lack of comfort in the field, were made from rough planks and unpolished logs with twigs sticking out, and used nails instead of hooks to hang up items along the edge of the shelves. After obtaining the necessary tools, Gazizov spent two to three days locked up in the storeroom with the sergeant major. Working together, they turned that Gypsy disorder into something that looked like a presentable store shelf. They shaved every board with the plane until it shined, they straightened up everything, and they put everything in its proper place. After inviting the battery commanders to join him, the captain showed them the improved storeroom and asked which way was better – the way it had been before or the way it was now? The answer was quite obvious. “Then why shouldn’t everyone do it this way?” Gazizov asked the assembled battery commanders with a puzzled expression. Within several days, all of the storerooms in the battalion had been similarly transformed. The new captain then moved on to meticulously examine the privates’ and non-commissioned officers’ weapons. Almost immediately, he ran into the carbine that belonged to radio operator Sergeant Bryndin from the battalion headquarter’s platoon. Now, after serving for a time with Gazizov and developing an appreciation of his true character, I am now almost convinced that “running into” Bryndin and his infamous carbine was not at all accidental – accidents were rare with Gazizov. The thing 233

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was, this sergeant had fought in some other unit, and had been transferred to our unit when we were already in Hungary. And if, at one time, the sergeant had been noted for his discipline, now it was, so to speak, just the opposite. He behaved insolently and he bragged of his “feats,” which, during the post-war months, mostly involved AWOLs [absences without leave] and drunkenness. Since all of his bad behavior tended to elevate his reputation among the young soldiers (those who were older didn’t listen to him at all), for the good of the service, he had to be taken down a peg or two. And so, on this occasion, the barrel of Bryndin’s carbine was, as usual, black on the inside from old scale, which, the sergeant maintained, was impossible to clean off. However, the presence of the old black scale allowed Bryndin to ignore the new dirt and avoid cleaning his weapon as he was supposed to. Gazizov pointed out the blackened barrel to the sergeant and demanded that he clean it. Bryndin insolently announced that it was impossible, adding glibly, “Just try it yourself, Comrade Captain!” That’s how he got caught. The battalion commander ordered five or six trophy German chain cleaning rods be brought to him, connected the cleaning rods into one long chain, put the chain through the barrel of the carbine, and attached the ends of the chain diagonally to the walls of his small barrack’s office. After taking off his jacket, the captain wrapped the entire chain with a rag soaked in cleaning solution and oil, locked himself alone in his office, and moved the carbine back and forth over the chain from one corner to another. Within a couple of hours, the formerly filthy barrel shone like a mirror. After this incident, Bryndin became the laughing stock of the entire battalion and, most importantly, everyone whose weapon had a black barrel hurriedly cleaned it in the same fashion so as to avoid an unpleasant conversation with the captain in the future. I can say that it was also a pleasure to talk with Gazizov. I never heard him utter a rude word, not to mention any obscene expressions, during the entire time we served together. He was literate, tactful, cultured, well educated, and demanding; in short, he was a real officer in the best sense of the word. Whenever he pointed out someone’s shortcomings, at the same time he always suggested and even practically demonstrated how to correct it. For this reason, the battalion’s order and discipline improved significantly. Although he was a new man in the regiment, he was accepted entirely by the experienced and battle-hardened frontline officers. They accepted and respected him as the commander because of his knowledge and experience rather than his rank or position. Gazizov also distinguished himself during the physical training periods. For example, when we were engaged in rope climbing, many of us, myself included, tried to use their height and even jumped as high as possible to grab the rope, so that it would be a shorter climb to the top. On the other 234

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hand, Gazizov would approach the rope, sit on the ground, straighten out his legs and, while holding them in a horizontal position, he would easily climb to the very top using only his hands. Neither Vakulenko nor Krivoruchko, the acknowledged battalion gymnasts, could repeat that feat. Gazizov irrevocably won over the artillerymen in the battalion by his imaginative organization of artillery training. Prior to his arrival, training classes were conducted in a purely formal manner, that is, either on paper, or, at the very best, on a very imperfect homemade miniature model of a firing range. Everyone was already sick of this model. For some reason, Gazizov selected me to help him, and, under his leadership, the two of us came up with a system that I had never before or after encountered – neither at the academy, nor at various training centers. The actual “shooting” was so realistic that the experienced battery commanders became interested in this innovation and attended these classes gladly and with great interest. My platoon, including the scouts and the telephone operators – participated in artillery “servicing” classes, where they were kept busy and also worked with intense interest. I’ll try to briefly explain the nature of our idea. Gazizov selected the roof of our barracks, from which you had a good view of the northeastern part of the Nagykanizsa region, to serve as an observation post. He then equipped the OP in the same fashion as he would have equipped it in actual combat conditions, which, in itself, created a favorable impression. The “shooter” received a map of the real terrain that stretched out in front of him. There were virtual gun positions marked on a map, allegedly located somewhere in the rear, behind the observation post, just as it would have been in a real combat situation. As the exercise leader, Gazizov then selected a target on the terrain lying immediately in front of us. The task assigned to us was to mark the target on the map, prepare the initial data required to open fire, and, by using a telephone operator sitting next to us, pass the commands to open fire to the gun positions. In reality, instead of extending to the gun positions, the communications line went to the target range, where I sat with a special map case and with my men camouflaged around me, each equipped with a telephone. After determining where the shells were supposed to hit from the commands I received, I issued a corresponding order, and one of my soldiers would blow up an imitation explosive at the proper point of impact. Each spotter on our “target range” responded in accordance with the command he received. Thus, if the “shooter” made a mistake, he saw the actual result of that mistake, while, if his command was correct, he could see an explosion squarely on the target. The illusion of live firing was complete, even though the bang of the imitation explosive was weaker than that of the real thing. Of course, this type of training required far more thorough preparation on the part of those conducting it than did other types of training. 235

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Figure 5.8 E. Moniushko (2) (photograph from E. Moniushko’s private collection).

However, this training generated far greater interest on the part of the students and produced far better results. Besides, in addition to the officers, all of the personnel in the reconnaissance and communications squads were able to participate as well. It was no accident that such an incorrigible skeptic like Senior Lieutenant Abramov, who had some higher education and engineering experience, also started to display noticeable interest in this training. According to his duties, he worked at the gun positions. 236

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And now he admitted that, before this time, he had never fully appreciated the work of the spotters and the meaning of the commands he carried out at his gun positions. Here is yet another episode characterizing Captain Gazizov. Once, at the end of a workday, he asked all of the battalion’s officers to assemble at the headquarters. Then he asked everyone in turn, “What do you have scheduled in your personal plan for tonight?” Without much thought, the first to be asked replied, “Prepare for classes,” or “Prepare to go on duty,” or “Take notes on the ‘Short Course on the History of the Party,’ ” and so on. When my turn came, all of the possible options had already been taken. Since I didn’t want to repeat anything, I was forced to say that my “personal plan” did not include anything special for tonight (since, of course, I did not really have any plan). Hearing my response, Gazizov said, with a smirk, “Finally, I have found at least one who isn’t busy!” Then he took out a wad of money from his pocket and asked me (asked, not ordered) to go to the movie theater and buy tickets for all present for a show selected by him. Feeling a bit awkward after their “inventions,” some started laughing. The captain replied that it was too early to laugh, but we would all laugh together later. Everyone began suspecting another trick from the captain, and as it turned out, they were not mistaken. The tickets, which I soon brought back for him, were for a comedy starring “Pat and Patashon.” It made no difference that the movie was not a “talkie,” since you couldn’t hear anything anyway because of the constant laughter in the theater. It now became clear why the captain said it was too early to laugh at the headquarters. To complete my story about Gazizov, I have to bring up the reason that he was assigned to our regiment. It turns out that, before his arrival, he had served in the intelligence department of an artillery corps’ headquarters. While serving there, a drunken senior officer from that headquarters rudely insulted the captain by calling him a “Tatar mug.” Small, but tough like iron, Gazizov turned his offender into a punching bag. Having known Ravil’ Rukhimovich Gazizov for a rather long time, I had not noticed that he had a short temper. I think that, during that incident, he reacted thoughtfully and correctly rather than in hot blood. In order to avoid any scandal, the corps command transferred Gazizov from the headquarters to a regiment, fortunately to a command position suited to his rank. He left the regiment in the fall of 1946 to study at the Academy, and his departure caused mixed feelings among the battalion’s officers. On the one hand, everyone understood that people like him should be taught and become prepared to serve in responsible positions; but, on the other hand, we were sorry to see him go and there was real apprehension that our new commander would turn out to be worse. I should immediately note that this apprehension was not justified, since it 237

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wasn’t bad serving under the new battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Vasilii Ivanovich Semionov. Many years later I tried to find Gazizov both through the Personnel Directorate and through the Address Bureau in Kazan’, where he was from, but unfortunately with no success. At approximately the same time as Gazizov left, Sergeant Major Aleksei Aleksandrovich Tolokonov was transferred to our regiment. Previously, he had served and fought in the 120th Gatchina Red Banner Rifle Division. Like our 72nd Rifle Division, the 120th had also been a part of the 117th Rifle Corps (by this time, both of the divisions had already been disbanded). The reason for Tolokonov’s transfer was similar to the story about Gazizov. Although he did not have the rank of a commissioned officer, during the war Aleksei occupied an officer’s position as a gun platoon commander. He performed excellently in that role, and since he enjoyed a well-deserved reputation among the officers, they always considered him as an officer. However, when the war was over and various self-seekers began popping up, some insolent fellow tried to forcefully eject the sergeant major from the officer mess. Unlike Gazizov, Tolokonov possessed, and even now possesses, a Herculean build. Therefore, it is clear his offender must have been very drunk, because if he had been sober he would have been afraid to start a fight. He got a good thump on the head, and Tolokonov was transferred to our regiment. Since it was not easy to find such a good platoon commander, Tolokonov was a fine acquisition. Later on, while he was an external student, Aleksei passed the test for admission to the Odessa Artillery Academy’s program of study, became a battery commander, and, with considerable success, participated with his battery in an all-army artillery competition at the Luga firing range. While there, his experience and soldier’s wit saved his battery from an accidental failure. During a harsh cross-country march required by the rules of the competition, a shock absorber’s spring leaf burst on one of his 122 mm howitzers. Although many faced with this situation would have given up, Tolokonov reattached the shock with a wooden wedge, and managed to paint it during the march and camouflage it with dirt, so that examiners didn’t notice the breakdown and the battery wasn’t removed from the competition. Now, on the fiftieth anniversary of Victory, Aleksei Aleksandrovich lives and works in the city of Zaporozh’e, having first retired to the reserves, and then completely, as a major. To some degree, another minor incident characterized the relations of our garrison with the Hungarian residents of Nagykanizsa. On this occasion, a group of AWOL soldiers (they were not allowed to take leave) took part in a party together with some of the town’s boys and girls. For some reason, but apparently because of a girl, a fight broke out, and patrols rushing toward the commotion arrested one sergeant. 238

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The next morning, a Hungarian policeman, a young, tall, and handsome man with half a moustache (there was bandage in place of the other half), came to the barracks to see the regimental duty officer. Even though we thought he would begin complaining, instead the policeman announced that he had no complaints, that it had been an honest fight between men (during which he had lost his moustache), and since he had not been on duty, it was a purely private matter. After taking his statement into consideration, when deciding on the issue of a penalty for the violator of discipline, the fight was “forgotten,” and only his being AWOL was counted. Despite my well-conducted billeting reconnaissance and my ability to settle all of the officers in private residences, some of my comrades still chose to live in the officer’s hostel, for which, as I have already mentioned, the local administration had allocated the semi-ruined three- or four-story building, which was almost a skyscraper by Nagykanizsa’s standards. Since the building’s front wing was almost completely destroyed by a bomb, you had to make your way into the surviving wings over a narrow footpath cleared between piles of rubble. Doors, window frames, and furniture had been collected in the partially surviving parts of the building with which to furnish the several rooms where the officers lived alone or in small groups. Most of the officers were platoon commanders in the artillery regiment. I remember that the platoon commanders from an entire company, Senior Lieutenant Abramov, Lieutenant Iakov Danilovich Vaks, Junior Lieutenants Belousov, and Fedor Shcherbenko, and someone else lived in one of the large rooms. Senior Lieutenant Khaliullin, who for some reason didn’t like the company of noisy officers, lived in a small room behind a wall adjacent to the larger room. On several occasions, after being awakened in the night by the uproar and laughter from behind the wall and after appreciating the utter uselessness of verbal requests, Khaliullin pulled his handgun out from under his pillow and fired into the wall, taking care not to hit even the tallest of his neighbors. Although the noise died down for some time after each of these incidents, the number of holes in the wall steadily increased. While I can understand why younger guys living as a tight-knit group lived together in such a manner, I cannot explain why such lovers of peace and quiet as Khaliullin and the older Junior Lieutenant Epishin, who had been a school principal before the war, did not want to live in a private residence. Once, Epishin informed us that his almost namesake, General Epishev [A.A. Epishev], the chief of the Soviet Army’s Main Political Directorate, had been his assistant at the school. One time, Epishin’s pedagogical past manifested itself in an unusual manner. Somewhere in the town, some of our soldiers found an office of an enterprise that was no longer in business. In this office they found plenty of forms and invoices, assembled from 239

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sheets of various colors – one copy was white, the second was red, the third was blue, and so on, totaling five or six colors in all. After learning about this find, Epishin, who commanded a platoon, decided to decorate the barracks of his platoon’s battery for the New Year. Under his leadership, the soldiers cut paper flags from the colored forms and hung them on thick thread under the ceiling of the barracks and along and diagonally up the barrack’s walls. I must add that many soldiers did this gladly during their free time. While some were remembering their recent childhood, others were recalling the childhood of their children and grandchildren. However, Epishin’s initiative ended in utter failure, when, just before the holiday, some general from the corps headquarters visited the barracks, took a look at what he called a “kindergarten” and ordered everything be removed so that there would be nothing unnecessary in the barracks. While this order was extremely painful for Epishin, it possibly resulted from measures being constantly taken in all units to keep them all at constant readiness. In this regard, a training alert conducted by our command one fall night soon after our transfer to winter quarters indicated both that the alert notification was poorly organized and the soldiers did not know how they were to react to it. In addition to issuing reprimands, the command took steps to improve the situation, by conducting additional training, drawing up detailed plans and instructions and, thereafter, holding regular practice alerts. Sometimes during the day but far more often during the night, the order to alert the regiment would come from the division headquarters to the regimental duty officer. The duty officer would then immediately send messengers to the officers’ quarters. Even though they ran, by the time the thoroughly out-of-breath platoon and battery commanders appeared on the parade ground in front of the barracks, the sergeant majors would already be completing the process of evacuating equipment and loading it onto trucks. The tractors’ engines would already be running in the artillery park, and the gun commanders would be supervising the loading of shells. The regiment would leave its completely bare barracks, marching off along the route specified in its packet of secret orders, usually within a period of no fewer than two hours from the moment the alert was announced. Only detached guards remained in the garrison to prevent outsiders from getting into the empty quarters. And, during this time, no one really knew whether or not they would come back. However, our regiment was lucky; we always returned “home” after the “all clear” was given. We did know, however, that some alerted units really did end up in other towns and other garrisons. That is why they recommended that we not forget anything or leave things behind on purpose, expecting to return soon after. 240

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Since most of these alerts took place in complete darkness, we really should not have put up any decorations since they could have caught on something and no delay was permitted. Of course, although these alerts kept the officers, as well as the privates and non-commissioned officers, tense, the majority of these personnel were frontline soldiers who were accustomed to a real combat environment. Everyone really felt and understood the necessity of such measures, and, if we grumbled, it was only for show. Not everything went so smoothly. For example, after the most recent discharge of older and more experienced soldiers, we faced the dangerous problem of being left without motor vehicle drivers. They tried to solve this problem by urgently dispatching young men who had just finished accelerated driving courses to the regiment. The battalion’s automotive technician, Perfil’ev, suffered from this problem more than anyone else. (And, apparently, the problem was no better in the other battalions.) During the very first alert that the new “drivers’ participated in, Perfil’ev ran between the trucks in the truck park, helping one or another when they could not manage to start their engines. He was swearing profusely and kept repeating in a hoarse voice, “What are they doing! Cars are supposed to start like matches!” Of course, the inexperienced, young soldier–drivers were utterly at a loss because all of this was taking place by touch and in total darkness. In this darkness, the drivers forgot that, in order to take the weight off their tires, the trucks in the park had been placed on elevated “shoes,” in reality, up on blocks. And if someone pressed a truck’s accelerator hard, he was surprised that the truck remained stationary with its wheels spinning madly in the air. With time, however, the young drivers finally got used to everything. I think that today, even in the army’s best units, if we called an alert, they would barely manage to do in two days what we were able to do in two hours. I do recall a few more incidents that reflect how life was in our officer quarters. One such incident involved Lieutenant Iasha Vaks, who was an amateur photographer. Incidentally, it was also Vaks who taught me the basics of photography. He always kept the solutions necessary to process his photographs – the developer, the fixing agent, and the other photochemicals – in bottles under his bed. On one occasion, after drinking copious quantities of Hungarian wine, while searching for more, Iashka’s roommates noticed the bottles under his bed. After almost emptying one of these bottles, one of the drinkers, who recognized an unfamiliar taste in his mouth, woke up the sleeping Iashka, and asked, “Iashka! What do you have there?” “Why?” Iashka replied with a question of his own, “Did you drink it already?” Guessing that there was trouble, and that, instead of wine, there had been some other crap in the bottle, the embarrassed drunk muttered, “Yeah.” “Well 241

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then, go order your coffin!” replied the photographer as he turned over on his other side. That is why medical assistance was required – but for a heart attack caused by the scare, rather than for poisoning. Some of the officers’ wives began arriving in the regiment in the beginning of 1946. During this time, Senior Lieutenant Zil’bershtein, the regimental quartermaster, found himself the butt of jokes by a group of officers who compiled an entire dossier containing alleged descriptions and photos of his adventures during his “bachelor period.” Worse yet, the jokers threatened to give this dossier to his arriving spouse if “Zil’ber” failed to provide good hors d’oeuvres for the forthcoming officers’ party. In reality, the dossier contained only completely harmless papers, if only because they had begun work preparing the dossier only two days prior to the planned blackmail. However, the quartermaster took it seriously, and finally paid up with several cans of goodies from the “second front” – cans of American pork tushonka. Even so, they did not return the dreaded dossier to him. After all, he certainly would not run off and complain, and, in the future, it could come in handy. On the first anniversary of our Victory, on May 9, 1946, they dedicated a memorial to the Soviet soldier–liberators in one of the squares in the center of Nagykanizsa, although I still don’t know who designed the memorial. Soldiers assigned from the garrison’s units and Hungarian builders performed the actual construction. The sculptured details of this memorial were cast out of concrete in Hungarian shops. They also installed two ZIS-3 guns on socles to the right and the left of the memorial’s central structure. I remember that, at the time, they thought about obtaining the guns from units that had fought in the area in early 1945. But since it turned out that none of those regiments were deployed nearby, we had to “pay up.” If you look at the front of the memorial, the gun standing on the right side was taken from the 4th Battery of our regiment, which was commanded by Senior Lieutenant Sergei Vasil’evich Pertsiukh. What was that memorial’s ultimate fate? Even if it survived 1956, in all likelihood, it probably no longer exists. Not only in Russia do vandals do their black deeds. S.V. Pertsiukh, who “presented” one of the four guns of his battery to the memorial, died in 1990 in Poltava after he retired. Unexpectedly, in the beginning of 1946, we had to say good-bye to one of our youngest guys, our excellent telephone operator Ivan Skorogonov, with whom we had since the fighting in Silesia. Although, by his age, he still had a lot more time to serve, during one of the field exercises, he punctured his hand with a telephone wire sticking out through worn-out insulation. That trifling scratch, which he paid little attention to at first, led to severe inflammation, a nerve was affected, and he soon lost the use of two of his fingers. Even though our nurse-medic dressed his wound, it wasn’t getting better, and, soon after, a medical commission determined he was unfit for further military service. Skorogonov left us for his village in the Urals. 242

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Gradually the number of experienced men, who had become close to me during the past year, grew fewer and fewer in number. New ones, which consisted of both veteran frontline soldiers and new post-war conscripts, who had not yet seen any action, took their places. Among these young men was a cultured young sergeant and radio operator named Iarushin, who was somehow distinguished by his Guards appearance (despite being short) and his excellent knowledge of his job, as well as his good manners. Perhaps I remember him because he was the first of many sergeants who served with my platoon only in peacetime. He arrived at our regiment from another unit together with Private Zakharov, and it was nice to see how the young sergeant considerately taught and took care of an even younger private. Perhaps this is the appropriate place to make some remarks concerning the elections that were held for various Hungarian governmental organs. Although the parliamentary elections actually took place after our departure, we did observe the preparations for these elections and for some other electoral campaigns of local significance. Especially in recent years, you often hear about the alleged pressure applied by our forces during these elections and the claim that the electoral victory by the leftist forces was provided by our “bayonets.” I can personally testify that, in this regard, both our command and our political workers constantly emphasized the inadmissibility of any sort of interference in these elections, by electoral agitation or “pressure” of any other sort. As far as I remember, the most influential among those political parties fighting for the votes of Hungarians were the Social Democrats, the Party of Small Land Holders, and the Communist Party. Although posters and leaflets of the competing parties were posted and torn down constantly in all convenient and inconvenient locations, we were not permitted to interfere, even if we noticed any hostile activity against the No. 4 [Communist] List. It must be noted that, during that period, the Hungarian Communist Party was more concerned about the quantity rather than quality of its members. To join the Party, one only had to visit one of their many agitation points and announce a wish to become a Communist. No doubt, this included both people simply unprepared for political work and possibly provocateurs as well. When they conducted some sort of election in Nagykanizsa (I don’t remember if they were primaries or local elections), all of the soldiers of the garrison remained in their barracks during the entire period of the elections, so as to avoid any cause for accusations. That also applied to all of the officers who were living in the town. Sometime during the spring of 1946, my hostess’ son described for me how it had been during the final days of the war, when its outcome was no longer in doubt. During that chaotic period, the local boys who had been 243

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mobilized into the army fled to their homes, dropping their weapons into wells. According to Josef, you could find submachine guns, carbines, and even machine guns at the bottom of many wells. Since he was one of such deserters, his words certainly seemed truthful. Since the presence of an underwater arsenal presented a certain danger, I decided to try to verify his assertions. After all, weapons could survive under water for a long time, and then might appear in the hands of some bandits. However, my subsequent conversation on that subject with my battery commander, Metel’sky, didn’t work out. He simply didn’t take it seriously. Therefore, I decided to renew the conversation only after I had obtained the necessary evidence. Choosing one well to examine, with the help of a soldier, I lowered myself into it on a rope. After searching the bottom, which required plunging into icy cold water, and finding nothing except rusted buckets, I returned back to the top. Apparently, however, this icy bath did not pass without certain consequences (or perhaps this was simply a coincidence). Soon after taking this cold bath, an inflammation began. One after another, boils appeared on my neck and jaw, healed, and then appeared once again. Even though I walked about with a swollen and bandaged neck, I did not forsake my duties. Instead, I tried not to show that it was getting harder and harder for me to move about. Our tactical exercises usually took place in the same location, and everyone had become used to the fact that, during the assault that always took place at the end of an exercise, the commander of the 2nd Battery’s headquarter’s platoon was first to reach the top of the hill with his platoon in the first line of the attackers. That is why, when I became so weak from that problem on my neck and my platoon passed me by and appeared on the hill without its commander, both the battery commander, Metel’sky, and the battalion commander, Gazizov, immediately noticed this fact. They sent me to the division’s medical battalion, which was located in a building in Nagykanizsa, right from the “battlefield.” So to speak, during this exercise, I was a real rather than a virtual casualty. During the evening, they put me in a room, but the next morning, when he was making his morning rounds, the battalion’s chief of medicine, who was usually a restrained and proper major in the medical service, literally blew up and, with very sharp expressions, ordered his assistants to prepare for surgery right there in the room, without taking time to bring me into the operating room. Later, he severely reprimanded the personnel who had failed to report to the doctor and take any action the evening before. Later on, they explained to me that the major had been afraid the abscess would burst, which could have affected my brain and God knows what else. After my surgery, things dramatically improved, especially since Rozhika and her mother brought me home-cooked “medicines” in large, 244

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Figure 5.9 A monument to Soviet soldiers (drawn by E. Moniushko).

nicely smelling pots and in a braided bottle, which I emptied with the help of my roommates. Nevertheless, I felt the unpleasant consequences of that illness, which had seemed like an annoying trifle in the beginning, until the fall of 1946, well after my return to the USSR from Hungary. Recalling our routine assaults on the very same hill during all of our exercises, I do remember yet another army tale. During one such assault, an umpire who was watching over the exercises detected some errors in the actions of the attackers time after time, and, each time, returned them to their initial positions, pronouncing their attack as repulsed. Not knowing what to do, the exhausted battalion commander and his equally exhausted soldiers silently cursed the umpire with unmentionably nasty expressions. And then one of the platoon commanders suddenly declared, “Either the hill is ours or I get five days of confinement,” got up, adjusted his uniform, tightened his belt, straightened his cap, and, after ceremonially stepping in front of the umpire, reported, “Comrade colonel! The general had asked that you report to him. He is in the exercise headquarters.” 245

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The surprised colonel shrugged and went off to the headquarters. As soon as he left the crest, the battalion immediately “captured the hill.” Whether or not this story is a fabrication or simply soldiers’ folklore, it really did sound quite authentic. The signs of our forthcoming redeployment began appearing during the second half of the summer of 1946. First, for example, they stopped granting leave to officers. The connection was obvious – why would they let you return to your home country from outside, if they soon planned to have you ride all of the way? Also, since none of the officers knew exactly when they were going to return from vacation, when they did, the entire regiment might have left for “home.” They also stopped giving permission for officers to bring their families to Hungary. These and some other minor details prompted us to anticipate our departure from Nagykanizsa and Hungary itself. At the end of August or in early September, the order came, “Prepare to load!” We didn’t require much time, the constant alerts had taught us that. But there were no loading ramps of sufficient size at the railroad station in Nagykanizsa. That is why we were to load at Fitjehazsa Station. a 15-kilometer ride in trucks for our regiment. There was nothing to it! We were pleasantly surprised, however, when we saw that the large field near the station was filled with thousands of people who had come to see us off. Almost all of them came on foot (and a few on bicycles), and all brought something along. This included a wide range of Hungarian home-cooked treats such as sausages, pies and cakes, fruit, and, of course, the Holy Trinity, wine, beer, and vodka, or rather fruit moonshine, in all sorts of containers from bottles and soldiers’ flasks to kegs of horrifying size, which even hardy men could barely carry on their shoulders. Consequently, not without cause were we frightened by the prospect of loading such a feast of plenty. Fortunately, there were no accidents in my platoon, even though Rozhika and her mother had not forgotten me or my men. The vehicles and other equipment were loaded on railroad flatcars and that’s where some of the soldiers also sat, even though there were special “40 men and 8 horses” types of railroad cars for the soldiers. The regiment’s command group occupied one or two passenger cars together with a few officers whose families were accompanying them. The train moved out in the semi-darkness of late evening, but abruptly stopped after the first kilometer. One member of the Hungarian train crew had gotten lost. One of the conductors spent the entire night walking along the track with a flashlight, yelling “Pishta-a-a!!!” But Pishta, apparently having celebrated too much either with those who were departing or those who were seeing off the departing, didn’t respond until morning. Well, what can you say? They had organized our transportation in interesting fashion. 246

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I have forgotten most of my subsequent “excursion” through Hungary. All I remember is the night passage through Budapest. Since the city was badly lit, all of the architectural structures appeared as dark hulks with sharp spikes on their roofs with the barely brightening sky in the background. Back then I didn’t realize that Aunt Elena, my father’s sister, was living in Budapest at that time. But even if I had known that, I doubt I would have been able to see her – I couldn’t abandon either the platoon or the train. With Budapest behind us, we crossed the Romanian border somewhere without noticing. The part of Romania our train passed through while traveling from Hungary to the Soviet frontier station at Ungeny [east of Iassy] was a pitiful sight. Even the Hungarian villages consisting of houses without chimneys looked far richer than the Romanian villages, which were made up of plain little houses with roofs of straw sitting along unpaved dirt roads that served as main streets. The poverty of this “European” country was striking, especially since, not so long ago, we had seen so many villages and towns in Silesia, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and along the shores of Lake Batalon in Hungary, which were so neat and well groomed despite the war destruction. However, the scenery in the mountainous parts of Romania, particularly the portion that bordered Hungary, was magnificent. As it passed through these mountains, the train traveled on tracks that, by some miracle, seemed to be glued to the steep slopes of forest-clad mountains. Through the open doors of the freight car, on one side of the car you could see almost vertical rock walls festooned with strangely bent trees clinging to the cliffs with their roots, and, on the other side, deep gorges, whose immense depths were masked somewhat by the tops of the trees growing up from below. The extreme and often imposing slope of the track was also unusual; you would see nothing like that in our steppes or plains. Even double locomotives linked in tandem with one another could barely pull our train up the steep grades, and, with difficulty, hold it when it was going downhill. From time to time, as we passed along the double track, we encountered or were passed by small and fast passenger express trains (called “rapids” by the locals), made up of two or three cars and a locomotive, which were flying at a mad and dashing speed for such a track. I cannot remember how we made our passage from the narrow European track to our normal, wide track at Ungeny Station. Either we transferred to other cars or we changed the axles under our railroad cars. While it was most likely the former, here my memory loss in complete. Although several of my comrades worried about potential conflicts with the border guards about bringing things that did not belong to the regiment across the border (there were no customs posts as yet), I did not think there was any cause for concern. None of the officers I knew (not to 247

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mention the privates and NCOs) were carrying any expensive trophies with them. Most of us were carrying only minor things we thought might come in handy back home, many of which we had picked up in places we had passed through during the war. A few, however, had light motorcycles they had acquired during the war, and the regimental commander had a shabby mid-class automobile; I think it was an Opel Kapitan. Fortunately, the border guards were only concerned that no strangers would be able to enter the Soviet Union on the train. Once at the border, our patrols, rail car commanders, and other duty personnel assisted them in their search. We all realized that when we crossed the border to our Homeland, rather than being greeted by the traditional bread and salt, we would enter a country that had been almost totally ravaged by the horrors of war. Despite this knowledge, our spirits soared – a few kilometers more and we would all be home! Yet home for many still remained thousands of kilometers beyond this sacred border.

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Italic page numbers indicate figures and illustrations not included in the text page range. 1st Battery, 9th Artillery Regiment 167 1st Tomsk Artillery Academy (TAU) see Tomsk Artillery Academy (TAU) 1st Ukrainian Front 89 2nd Battery, 9th Artillery Regiment 131 see also 9th Leningrad Artillery Regiment 2nd Tomsk Artillery Academy (TAU) 60–1 3rd Training Officer Reserve Artillery Regiment of the 1st Ukrainian Front (UPROS) see UPROS 6th Guards Airborne Division 197 8th Workshop Section 33–6 9th Leningrad Artillery Regiment: area of operations: (April–May 1945) 166; (February–May 1945) 139; assignment to 130; Czechoslovakia to Hungary 191; FOP near Dankvic 145; Horˇice 190; Prague operation 187; relocation to Grottkau city forest 147–9; relocation Upper Silesian operation 151; transfer to 113th Guards Rifle Division 197 14 Duke Josef Street: billet in Nagykanizsa 223–4 25th Artillery Penetration Division 217; camps in Hungary 218 27th Platoon 59 27th Separate Officer Reserve Training Battalion (OUDROS) 124, 125 48th Heavy Mortar Brigade 214 72nd Rifle Division 197 76 mm ZIS-3 guns see ZIS-3 guns

100 mm gun 177 113th Guards Rifle Division 197 120th Gatchina Red Banner Rifle Division 238 160 mm mortar 150 245th School (Leningrad) 7 468th Guards Artillery Regiment 202 1645th Tank Destroyer Artillery Regiment (IPTAP) 92, 95 A7-A radios 141 Abramov, Senior Lieutenant 236–7, 239 abscesses 244–5 Abul’khanov (Shutrik’s orderly) 163 accident: at Tomsk 76–9 Admiralteiskii Factory 33–6 Afansieva, Liusia 7 AFVs (armored fighting vehicles) 96–7 Ageev (cadet at Tomsk) 68, 72, 82 air defense group: Leningrad 7–8 air raid alarms 12 air raids 5–6, 11–14, 19–20, 30–1 alerts: training 240–1 Altai region 46 America 203 ammunition 133; restrictions 170 Andre Marti factory 33–6 Andreev, Evgraf 65–6 anti-tank ditch construction 5, 6 Antonenko, Ivan Nikitovich 189, 212, 214, 231 Apotheosis of War 188 Armasov, Ibragim 42 armored fighting vehicles (AFVs) 96–7 Arnold-Aliabiev, V.I. 3, 11, 16, 18, 42

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Budapest 247 Bulatov, Lesha 160, 163 bunks 62 Burenkov, Private 141, 189 burzhuika (stove) 8, 23, 25 Bykov (truck driver) 163, 164, 174–5

Artamonov, Dr 75 artillery battery 185 artillery ditches: structure of 97–8 artillery pieces 72, 84–5 artillery proving ground: Devecser 217 artillery, Red Army 176 artillery training 235–7 atomic bomb 203 Aunt Galia 28, 217 Aurora: cruiser 35 Austria 199–200 awards 192 Badaev food warehouses: conflagration 12, 13 Baklykov, Vasia 106–7, 108–9, 114–15, 116, 117 Balaton, Lake 207–8, 210 Balatonfüred 207 Bandera, Stefan 90 Banderites 90, 92 Barnaul Mortar Academy 54 barracks: Gabor Aron 209, 221; Tomsk Academy 62 bathhouse 83–4 Bazhov, P. 50 Belousov, Junior Lieutenant 214, 231, 239 Beregovoi, G. 101 Bergholz, Olga 42 Biisk 44 Biisk station: snow clearing 56 billet: in Nagykanizsa 223–6 billeting 221–3 biological station, Vyritsa 3 birthday: EM’s sixteenth 5 blackout system 21–3 BM-13 mortars 98 boats: 8th factory shop 37; Lake Ladoga 43 Boguslavsky, Sergeant 188 boils 244–5 Bol’shaia Izhora: dacha 4 bombing: Hiroshima 203; incendiary 19–20; Leningrad 11–14 bomb shelter construction 8–9 Borkovkin, Ivanovich Vasilii 189 Bozdorf 156 bread 27–8, 176 Breslau (Wroclaw) 165, 170 bridgehead: Vistula 96–7 brother of EM (Tolia) see Moniushko, Tolia Bryndin, Sergeant 233–4

cable phone wires 142–4 cadets: at Tomsk 65–9 cafeterias 36–7 call up 54–5 camps: Gabor Aron 209, 221; at Letenye 201–2 carpenter’s glue: as food 27 cartoons 34 cats: as food 28; “Fritz cat” 149 Chapaev, Vasilii Ivanovich 113 checkpoints 93–4; guidance from 128 chemical defense 86 chemical spread research 16–17 Cherniav, Ivan Mikhailovich 85 Chirkov family 45 Chirkov’s hut 48 Christmas Tree decorations: as food 27 churches 227 “Citizen of Besieged Leningrad” badge 10 cleanup: Leningrad 30 clothes at Ust’-Labinskaia 111 communications 138–9, 141–7 “concerts”: Czech 194 conjuring tricks 204 crest: Tomsk Artillery Academy (TAU) 81 Czechoslovakia to Hungary 191 dacha: at Bol’shaia Izhora 4 daily detail 65 dances 227, 229 Dankwitz (Dankvic): FOP 138, 145 Danube River 200 Davidenko (cadet at Tomsk) 66 “D-Day”: Upper Silesian Operation 152 decorations 192; Germans 162 Devecser 214, 217 disciplines 64 ditches: construction: Ivanovskoe 5; Tomsk Academy 57; structure of 97–8 Diud’bin, Colonel 74–5 Dnepropetrovsk Horse Artillery Academy (DKAU) 60 documents: on graduation 88 draft (conscription): registering 49–50

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drawing 34 dressing practice: uniforms 62–3 drill practices 84 drivers, truck 163–4, 241 dugout shelters 133, 138, 139–40 Dwor Krapowe 186 Ekaterinhof and Kryukov channel: house on corner of 10 elections: Hungary 243 electrician: job as 33 emaciation 30 employment: nightwatchman 51–2; at Staro-Azhinka 46–9; trainee electrician 33 entertainment 194–5 Epishev, General A.A. 239 Epishin, Lieutenant 212, 239–40 episodes at Vistula bridgehead: one 98; two 99; three 99–100; four 100–1; five 101–3; six 103–5 Ermolaev, Sergeant 67–8, 78 Estern Poland 91 evacuation 40–4 explosion: at Tomsk 76–9 family: of EM 28 Far East engagement 203–4 father: of EM 19–20, 28, 29, 45, 54, 117, 217 Ferdinands 97 field kitchens: German trophy 131, 164–5 firearms: training 85–6; trophy 92; see also guns firewood 40; Tomsk Artillery Academy (TAU) 81–2 firing ranges: German 217; Lake Balaton 210–11; Tomsk 64–5 firing service: Tomsk Artillery Academy (TAU) 84–5 fixed defensive fires (NZOs) 167, 169 floor washing 61, 79–80 flour mill 53, 54–5 food: during the last period of the war 176–7; rations 21, 25–7, 37; sources of 27–8 forward observations posts (FOPs) 147, 168; Hannsdorf 157–9; Hill 188.1 138–40, 145 Freiberg 184 Friedewalde 156, 157 friendly fire 158

“Fritzes” 149 Frolov, Tolia 135, 182 fruit 176 Gabor Aron Camp 209, 221 Galia: aunt of EM 28, 217 gas masks: as soup containers 36 Gavrilenko, Senior Lieutenant 148, 167, 174, 178, 181, 212 Gazizov, Ravil’ Rukhimovich 232–8 Germans: AFVs 96–7; decorations 162; method of attack 97–8; snipers 170, 174 girlfriends 197 Gogolin 129 Gorzhice 188 “Go there, I don’t know where” 128, 160 Govorov Artillery Radio-Technical Academy 66 graduation 88 grain dryer 51–2 grapeshot 97 Griboiedov Canal: house on corner of 14 “Grob” (Coffin): NZO 169 Gross-Briezen 156; fighting for 154 Grottkau city forest 148 Grottkau–Niesse highway 152, 156, 157 Grottkau–Niesse sector: battles 154–63; relocation to 147–9 Grunau 181 guard duty 80, 90–2 “Guards” inspectors 197–8 GUKART (Main Personnel Administration of Artillery) 123–4 guns 84–5, 171; 76 mm ZIS-3 96, 98, 242; 100 mm 177; cleaning 234; deployment 96; and truck 100; in wells 244 see also handguns gymnastics: Tomsk Artillery Academy (TAU) 87 Gypsies 219 hand grenades 86 handguns: EM’s 92, 213–15; target practice 212–14 Hannsdorf 157 harvesting 47 “H-hour” 152, 153 Hill 188.1 145; battle at 140–1; forward observation post 138 Hill 718.0 138, 165 Hiroshima: bombing 203

251

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Hitler’s birthday 173 Horˇice 190 Horˇive 197 hospitals: army 104–5; evacuation, Vasiurinskaia 109–12; L’vov 105–7; Ust’-Labinskaia 112–15 hot mineral springs 211 houses: on corner of Kryukov channel and Ekaterinhof 10; on corner of Malkin Prospect and Griboidov Cana 13; on corner of Malkin Prospect and Griboidov Canal 14 housing, emergency 8, 9–10 Hungarian Communist Party 243 Hungary: life style 226–9; march to 198–201; movements in 206 Husar (billeting “hostess”) 223–4 hut, Chirkov’s 48 Hydrological and Meteorological Service Directorate 11 Iaroslav 95 Iarushin, Sergeant 243 Iatsuk, Senior Lieutenant 95, 103 ice durability research 16 identification card: KOMSOMOL 39–40 illumination: dugouts 139–40 incendiary bombs 19–20; extinguishing 20 inflation 207 “intermediates”: telephone stations 145–7 IPTAPs 96; location of 91 Iurdansmuhl 138 Ivanov, Fedor Grigorevich 7, 85, 141 Ivanovskoe: anti-tank ditch construction 6 Janoshaza 216 Japanese engagement 203–4 Jarisau area 181 Jicîn 197 Josef: Husar’s son 223–4, 243–4 journeys: Leningrad to Biisk 42–4; Solton to Tomsk 55–6; Tomsk to Ukrainian front 89–90; to Vistula front: map 91; UPROS to front line 92–5; L’vov to between Krasnodar and Kropotkin 107–8; Rostov to Leningrad 119–21; Moscow to L’vov 128–9; to find Tolia 205–8, 215–16; Nagykanizsa to USSR 247–8

Kamanin, N.I. 101 Kaptsov, Sergeant 188 Katia (cook at Vasiurinskaia hospital) 109–10 Kazakhstan 44 Keszthely 211 Khaliullin, Senior Lieutenant 239 Kharitonov, Colonel 72–3, 124 Kingisepp 5 Kirillovich, Konon (“old man Konyshka”) 55 Kirov Opera Theater (now Mariinski) 31 Kitaiskii Drive 125 kitchen detail 61, 80–2 kleiton (winnowing machine) 48, 50 Klimchenko, Nikolai Sevast’ianovich 188, 212 Kobona 42–3 Kochetkov (gunner) 96, 104 Kolechko, Vasilii Tarasovich 135, 146, 149, 156, 171–2, 177, 180, 186, 192, 196 KOMSOMOL (Communist Party youth organization) 8; identification card 39–40 Konyshka’s mill 53, 54–5 Korshunkov, Lieutenant Colonel 131, 204, 213, 230 Krakow 129 Krasnodar 108 Kronshtadt: air raids 5 Kropotkin 108 Kryukov channel and Ekaterinhof: house on corner of 10 Kushch, Nikanor Ivanovich 204 Kushch-Zharko, Captain 182, 183 Kuznetsov (gunner) 150 Kuznetsov, N.G. 30 Kuznetsov, Senior Lieutenant (the Red) 223 laboratory assistant: Red Banner Baltic Fleet school 18 Lake Balaton 207–8, 210 Lake Ladoga 41, 43 “lampions” (trophy candles) 140 LATUZA (Leningrad Anti-Aircraft Artillery Academy) 60 Lazarenko (cadet at Tomsk) 66, 85 Leihtman, David L’vovich 16 Leliushenko, General D.D. 153, 157 Leningrad: 1941 22; street scene during

252

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siege 29; winter 17–30; 1942: spring 30–2; 1942/3: winter preparations 40–1; Pioneers’ Palace 10, 15, 16; siege 7–41; visit on leave 120–2 Leningrad A.I. Gertsen Pedagogical Institute 3 Leningrad Anti-Aircraft Artillery Academy (LATUZA) 60 Leningrad Artillery Regiment, 9th see 9th Leningrad Artillery Regiment “Leningrad Drinking Song” 231–2 Lenin monument 35–6 Lenin Stadium 40 Letenye 201 letters 117–19 Liashko, Lieutenant Colonel 57, 71–2 Liashko, Sergeant Major 56, 68 lice 28 looting 222–3 Lower Silesian Operation 152 Lung, Victor 42 Lupekin, Sergeant Major 194, 204 Lutnitsky, P. 9 L’vov 94–5 machine gunners 178 magic box 204 magicians 204 mail 117–19 Main Personnel Administration of Artillery (GUKART) 123–4 Makhno, Senior Lieutenant 189, 212 Malkin Avenue: house on corner of 13, 14 malnutrition 18–19 Malyshev, Senior Lieutenant 137, 148, 158, 174, 212 maps: area of operations: (April–May 1945) 166; (February 1945) 142; (Prague operation) 187; camps in Hungary 218; journey to Vistula 91; movements in Hungary 206; Neisse to Waldenburg 139; OP, Upper Silesian operation 151; trophy 199; western Siberia and Altai region 46 March 15, 1945: “D-day” 152, 153 “marker”: in 8th Workshop 35 Marksdorf 165–7; observation post 165 Martynova, Iraida Aleksandrovna 11 Masly, Captain 131 May Day flags: Marksdorf 173–4 meat 176 medical service lieutenant 189

medical training 75 memorial 245; Nagykanizsa 222, 242 Meshalkin, Lieutenant 189 Metelitsa, Major Aleksei Ivanovich 130–1, 205 Metel’sky, Vasilii Fedorovich 131, 134, 146, 148, 149, 167, 174, 178, 180, 212 meteorological station: Leningrad Pioneers’ Palace 10–11 Mga 120 Mikhailov (telephone operator) 136 Mikhailov, Captain 212 Miletin 188, 190 military highways 93–4 military training: preliminary 52–3 mill 53, 54–5 Mogilev Bridge 14, 40 Mogwitz 156 Molibog, A.Ia. 42 Moniushko, Evgenii: photographs 116, 225, 228, 236 Moniushko, Tolia (brother of EM) 4–5, 11, 32, 36, 45, 53–4, 117, 205, 216–17, 229–30 monuments 245; Nagykanizsa 222, 242 Morozov, Sergeant Major 135, 136, 146 Morse code 141 mortars 98; 160 mm 150; factory 36 Moscow 122–6 Moscow–Stalingrad–Berlin–Prague 153 mother: of EM 4, 49, 217 motor boats: Lake Ladoga 43 motorcycles 195 movie theatres 31 MPVO (civil defence) 9 Mura Crossing 203 Murakeresztúr 203 museum: artillery pieces 72 Nagykanizsa 206–7, 226–9; Gabor Aron Camp 209; monument 222 national costume: Hungary 226 Nedosviatii, Vladimir 66–7, 74–5, 76, 77, 78 Neisse city: battle for 159–63 Neisse to Waldenburg: area of 9th Artillery Battalion operations 139 Neninka 50, 54 Neva River 23–4; warships 21 New Year’s Eve celebration (1946) 230–2 Nth Guards Rifle Division 202 NZOs (fixed defensive fires) 167, 169

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Prokof’evich, Andrei 150, 212 public transport shutdown 21 pumpkins 49 Pustovoi, Evgenii 65, 77, 78 puttees 58 Pykhtin, Ivan 188, 212

observation posts (OPs): 2nd Artillery Battery’s 132–4, 137–8; Grottkau forest 149–53; (relocation to) 147–9; Marksdorf 165, 167–77; Zobten 177–81 October Revolution celebrations 21 Odnol’ko (cadet at Tomsk) 66, 86 officers: at Tomsk 69–76 officers’ hostel 221; Nagykanizsa 239 Opolskaia Operation 152 Oppelnskaia Silesia 152 Osinovets 41 Ottmacau region 162 OUDROS, 27th 124, 125 outbreak of war 3–4

Quiet Don, The 200

Panova, Fëdorovna 107 Panzer IVs 97 paper window shields 21–3 parachute silk 219 parents: of EM 217; see also father; mother partisans 193 Party membership 193 Pavchenko, Private 163, 198–9 peacetime camp 190 peasants: Hungary 226 pencil factory: Tomsk 82, 83 Peremyshl’ 95 Perfil’ev, Lieutenant 189, 212, 241 performance: theatrical 194–5 periscope 140 Perm 43 “permanent” wire lines 142–3 Pertsiukh, Sergei Vasil’evich 242 pets: as food 27 phone wires 142–4 photography 229 P’iankov (telephone operator) 136, 147 Pindiurin, Senior Lieutenant 189, 212 Pioneers’ Palace 10, 15, 16 platoon commanders 127 platoons: Tomsk Artillery Academy 58–9 Podvolochisk 90 poisoned bullets 170 Poliakov, Senior Lieutenant 73, 78 political training 87 pontoons (tenders) 34, 37, 41 Popkov, P.S. 30 postal service 117–19 practice alerts 240–1 Prague operation: 9th Artillery Regiment 187

Raber, Raia 42 radios 141–2 railroad building: Tomsk 82–3 railroad journeys: Leningrad to Biisk 42–4; L’vov to between Krasnodar and Kropotkin 107–8; to meet Tolia 215–16; Moscow to L’vov 128–9; Nagykanizsa to USSR 247–8; Rostov to Leningrad 119–20; Tomsk to Ukrainian front 89–90 railroad workers: singing 215 Rainbow (movie) 87 Rassadkin, Vitia 42 ration cards 25–7 rations 21, 25–7, 37 RBM radios 141 Red Army anti-tanks troops 171 Red Army artillery 176 Red Army machine gunners 178 Red Banner Baltic Fleet school: laboratory assistant 18 redeployment: leaving Nagykanizsa 246 regulations: list of 63 relocation: Grottkau city forest 147–9, 151 repair shop 86–7 reserve housing 8, 9–10 Revzin, Major 201, 220 “Road of Life” 34 roads 93–4 Romania 247 Romanov, Aleksandr 149, 174, 212 roof patrols: air defenses 24 Rozhika: Husar’s daughter 223–5 rumors, of war 3 Rzeszow 95 Sabynich, Vikentii 135–6, 220 Salnis, Captain 74–5 Samsonova, Faia 17 Sapromadze (cadet at Tomsk) 68 Scherbenko, Fedia 189, 231, 239 scurvy 31, 37–8 security patrol: Leningrad 1941 22

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Semenov, Vladimir 67 Semionov, Vasilii Ivanovich 238 senior lieutenant: at Székesfehérvar 215–16 sentry-duty: Leningrad 7–8 Serbin, Senior Lieutenant 75 Sevastapol’ 93 sewage 24 Shahbazian, Sergeant 95–6, 96 Shalaev, Kostia 141, 142, 170, 205 Shamsin (truck driver) 163 Shapkin, Captain 74 shelling: Leningrad 11, 21, 32 shells: production 36 shipbuilding factory: work at 33–6 Shliakhov, Konstantin Ivanovich 152–3, 156, 174, 186–8, 195, 212, 232 Sholokhov, Mikhail 200 shooting: EM’s 103–5 Shostak, Grigorii 67 Shubin, Fedor 231 Shuleikin, V.V. 15–16 Shutrik, Andrei Prokof’evich 131, 132–3, 169, 189, 212 Siberia, western: map 46 Siberian winter 80 siege: of Leningrad 7–41 Siial’skii, Senior Lieutenant 73–4, 89–90 singing: Czech 194; Leningrad Drinking Song 231–2; railroad workers 215; soldiers 200 Skorogonov, Vania (Ivan) 136–7, 158, 242 Slavkin, Garik 17 snipers: Germans 174 snow clearing 56–7 Sofronov (workshop electrician) 33, 34–5 Solomba: naval hydro-meteorological observatory 14 Solton 50, 51 Somlo Mountain 217 “song festivals” 194 Sopov, Major 71 sotka gun 177 Soviet Army: reorganization 197 spoons 219–20 Stanowitz 183–4 Staro-Azhinka 45, 47; graindryer 52 statsionars: care centers 28–9 Stefansdorf 157, 159 Stepanenko, Sergeant 134–5 stockpiling 40

stove-making 8 stoves 8, 23, 25 Strebel 170–1 Strel’na 7 Strigau 181–2 Stupov, Lieutenant 89 sub-caliber shells 96–7 subjects 64 sugar 177 Sukhanov (telephone operator) 136, 137, 141 Sunday volunteer workday 82–3 Sutugin, Senior Lieutenant 58–9, 69–70, 82 Suvorov, General 208 swimming 87 Székesfehérvar 215 Taiga Station: snow storm 83 “tailoring business” 49 tales, army 245–6 Tank Destroyer Artillery Regiments (IPTAPs) see IPTAPs tanks 86, 96–7; IS-2 179; losses 155; T-34s 152; Tigers 172 target practice 85–6; hand guns 212–13 Tarnopol’ 93 Tarnopol’ region 90 TAT-F phone 144 TAU (Tomsk Artillery Academy) see Tomsk Artillery Academy teeth problems 19–20 “telephone illumination” 139–40 telephone operators 136, 143–4; in dugout shelter 133 telephones 142–8 tents: white 217–19 Terkin! 162 Tiger tanks 96–7, 172 Tikhoretsk 115–16 Timofeev (scout) 135–6, 195 tobacco 47, 226–7 Tolokonov, Aleksei Aleksandrovich 238 Tomsk Artillery Academy (TAU) 56; accident 76–9; artillery pieces 72; bathhouse 83–4; campuses 59–61; crest 81; daily detail 65; drill practices 84; firearms training 85–6; firing service 84–5; graduation 87–8; gymnastics 87; outside work 82–3; political training 87; uniforms 87–8 Tomsk Pencil Factory 82, 83

255

INDEX

TOTU (Tula Technical Weapons Academy) 60, 61 tourniquets 103–4 Train, The 107 training: artillery 235–7; disciplines 64; firearms 85–6; practice alerts 240–1 training program 208–9 trains: medical 107–8; see also railroad journeys transport system shutdown 21 Travkin, Iura 135, 141 Troitskii Cathedral 18 trophy maps 199 trophy stockpiles 219; food 176–7 trophy weapons 196 truck drivers 163–4 trucks 163–4; Chevrolet 198; and guns 100 Tula Technical Weapons Academy (TOTU) 60, 61 Turchenko, Sergeant Major 68–9 Tvardovsky, A. 158, 162, 177 Ukraine front 95–105 UNA-F phones 143 uncles of EM: Alexander 39; Grigoriy 39; Vitia 42 uniforms 57–8, 69, 175, 217–19, 220; dressing practice 62–3; Tomsk Artillery Academy (TAU) 87–8 Upper Silesian Operation 152; artillery bombardment 153; relocation 2nd Battery 151 UPROS (3rd Training Officer Reserve Artillery Regiment of the 1st Ukrainian Front) 90, 92; location 91 Ural Tales, The 50 USA 203 Ushaika River 86 Ust’-Labinskaia 112–15 Vaks, Iakov Danilovich 239 Vaks, Lieutenant Iasha 241–2 Vakulenko, Lieutenant 158, 231 “Valley-1” FOP 138–47 Vasil’ev, Lieutenant 59, 66, 67, 70, 77, 82 Vasilevskaia, Vanda 87 Vasiurinskaia hospital 109–12 vegetables 176 Veimarn Station 5 Vereschagin, Vasily 188

Vienna 200 villagers: Hungary 226 Vinogradov, Lieutenant 59, 64, 70–1 Vistula bridgehead 96–7; episodes: one 98; two 99; three 99–100; four 100–1; five 101–3; six 103–5 Vistula front: map of journey 91 VLKSM (All-Leningrad KOMSOMOL) 8 Volgin, Stephan 109, 110, 112, 114, 116 Voronezh 90 Vorst Nonnen Busch Forest 184 Vydrin (truck driver) 163, 164 Vyrava, Vladimir 197 Vyritsa railroad station 3 Waldau 155 Waldenberg 184–6 warships: in Neva River 21 water: supply of 23–4 weapons 84–5; see also guns; handguns Western Ukraine 91 wheat harvesting 47–8 wind speed measurement 16–17 wine: Hungarian 223, 229 winnowing machine (kleiton) 48, 50 Wintzenberg 155–6 wives: of officers 242 work: nightwatchman 51–2; at StaroAzhinka 46–9; trainee electrician 33 wounding: EM’s 103–5 Wroclaw (Breslau) 165, 170 Yugoslavia–USSR relations 203 Zakharov, Private 243 Zamansky, Captain 195 Zapadlova, Bozhenka 197 Zatserkovnyi, Guards Major 96 Zharkov, Senior Lieutenant 131 Zhdanov, A.A. 30 Zherdev, Sergeant Major 132, 134, 162 Zhironkina, Ania 108, 115, 116–17 Zil’bershtein, Senior Lieutenant 242 ZIS-3 guns 96, 98, 242 Zmitkova, Frantishka 197 Zobten: observation posts (OPs) 177–81 Zobtenberg 165 “Zuendapp” motorcycle 195 Zuev, M.I. 20 Zykov (cadet at Tomsk) 67, 77, 78

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From Leningrad to Hungary: Notes of a Red Army Soldier, 1941-1946

From Leningrad to Hungary: Notes of a Red Army Soldier, 1941-1946 (Soviet (Russian) Study of War)

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From Leningrad to Hungary: Notes of a Red Army Soldier, 1941-1946