Tank Rider: Into the Reich with the Red Army

FIGHTING ON THE SANDOMIR BRIDGEHEAD

The next day we left that position and quickly moved on tanks to the west, towards the Vistula, where Soviet troops had captured a bridgehead on the western side of the river. We entered Poland.

The march was quiet, we did not participate in any action on the way from Sambor to Sandomir bridgehead. Even the Luftwaffe did not disturb us. We completed our 200 kilometres’ march, reached the Vistula by 15 August and safely crossed the river on a bridge of boats. The German air force constantly bombed the bridge, but at the time when we were crossing, the Luftwaffe was not there. We were lucky.

Our Brigade’s task, as well as task of the entire Tank Army, was to assist the units holding the Sandomir bridgehead. However, the heavy fighting companies of all battalions of the Brigade had suffered significant losses in personnel, and the tank regiment had lost many tanks and other equipment. Our company had fifteen or twenty men left, and other companies did not fare better, some even had less. After crossing the Vistula we advanced into the bridgehead and stopped in a young forest, setting up tents. We did not have anything to go into action with – neither tanks nor soldiers.

Several days later we received insignificant replacement personnel from hospitals and rear units. The men that joined the company were of different ages, most of them were older, the bulk of them had never seen battle, and some of them did not know how to handle a submachine-gun. It was not a nice gift, as the saying goes. But we had to go into battle with them, so we trained them a lot. Chernyshov appeared, on 20 August he took over the company, while I returned to my second platoon. Two companies were formed in the battalion. There were not enough men to form the 3rd company. All in all, we were given no more than a week to form the units.

For the first time at the front they screened a film for us – Two soldiers. However, we did not have a chance to finish watching it - a kukuruznik, or corn plane (this is what we called a U-2 plane) (the name probably comes from the joke that those planes could not fly higher than corn – translator’s comment), flew by, the pilot turned off the engine and shouted to us through loudspeaker: ‘Slavs, turn off the film! The Germans are about to deliver an artillery strike!’ Everyone dispersed very quickly. The pilot was right, after some time the Germans hit the place with artillery fire. We finished watching that film after the war, in the autumn of 1945 in Vesprem, Hungary. They did not show any more movies to us at the front. I rarely saw artists or war correspondents or mobile shops during my time at the front. Just once, in June 1944 when we were at Kopychintsy, an army ensemble came to visit us, that was about it for cultural activities in our 49th Mechanized Brigade. All of a sudden a military shop appeared on Sandomir bridgehead. Once squad leaders, led by Sergeant Pavel Poddubny, walked up to me and asked me if I had money. I gave them some money, but I do not remember how much. I could not have had a lot of money, as my salary was 900 roubles, out of which 700 I sent to my parents through bank transfer, and I had to pay party membership fees and do some other payments, leaving around 100 roubles for myself. So, when the military shop arrived, it turned out that those guys bought a couple of Troinoi (brand name – translator’s note) eau-de-colognes and some other small things. They invited me to their tent and proposed drinking the eau-de-cologne. It would have been nice to have a drink, but my stomach would not take eaude-cologne, and the men drank it themselves.

In late August, about the 26th, the Brigade was transferred to the front sector where the Germans were pressurizing the infantry units of the army. We had to stop the enemy and throw him back to the initial positions. Our battalion, as well as the Brigade in general, was seriously weakened; other units of our army also suffered significant losses, but a tank army is a tank army, it is not a needle in a stack of needles, so our arrival was not left unnoticed by the Germans. The very fact of our arrival deterred the enemy. We were happy that the German air force was almost not present – they either were exhausted or transferred from Sandomir bridgehead to another front sector. However, German artillery was very active instead, and the worst part was that they opened more or less accurate fire with largecalibre shells. However, we successfully camouflaged our positions, made to dig in and did not have losses from that barrage.

On an evening in late August 1944 the company received an order to move to the attack position, closer to the German lines and wait for the order to assault the nearest hill. As far as I remember, another platoon leader in the company was Lieutenant Gavrilov. I led the first platoon, Sergeant Savkin led the second and Gavrilov led the third one. The company that was supposed to have 100 men had not more than 40 soldiers.

I moved the platoon and company forward, ordered them to dig in, appointed observers and we had a chance to ‘listen to the grass growing’ for a couple of hours, that is, to have a nap. At dawn an orderly ran to me from company commander Chernyshov with an order ‘to attack the hill’. We had neither tanks nor artillery support. The Brigade had suffered heavy casualties in tanks, the artillery battalion must have also been hit hard. As often happened at the front, we did not have the slightest idea about the enemy – how strong he was, where the positions were and whether he had tanks.

The sun started to warm us; it was quiet, one could hear only birds singing from the nearest forest, which was not yet occupied by our troops. I replied to the runner that I was about to start the attack; he left, and I again fell asleep. The runner from the company commander ran up again, with the same order and with threats from the company commander. I again replied that we would commence the attack any time soon and fell asleep again – such things had never happened to me before. The runner woke me up and again reminded me of the attack – this time, the company commander ordered him not to leave me before I started the attack. I slept under a bush on soft grass (I did not dig a trench), I had been dreaming about something peaceful and I really did not feel like dying in that quiet hour… I tried to think of death as little as possible, but at that moment I was merely overwhelmed by exhaustion and quietness and I really wanted to sleep.

I feared a German attack from the left, from the forest – we were on the leftmost flank of the battalion, but I had to fulfil the order. I got the company up and we advanced in short rushes. The enemy did not open fire and we advanced some 100 or 150 metres ahead. So far everything was all right and I already had hopes that we would quietly capture the hill without shooting and soldiers dying, but my dreams did not come true.

The enemy opened a storm of rifle and machine-gun fire. A German self-propelled gun, the so-called ‘assault gun’ (Sturmgeschütz) with 75 mm barrel, appeared on the hill and opened fire. Soldiers lay down, using all folds of the earth, every little hillock, to hide from the bullets. As I could not find a better place, I also lay down in the shade of a bush, a small creek with steep shores behind me. My soldiers also opened fire on the enemy, but we did not even have heavy machineguns – the machine-gun platoon had ceased to exist a long time before that battle; we only had submachine-guns and light machineguns. The German assault gun opened fire with its main gun even on individual soldiers, and very soon all fire from our side ceased. It did not matter how hard I shouted, soldiers did not shoot – no one wanted to die hit by a 75 mm shell. Apparently, the Germans saw me waving my hands, demanding soldiers to open fire and generally making a show. Next to me, not far away, a soldier was lying and the assault gun went right after us. The shell exploded next to the soldier, he was thrown into the air and dropped dead on the ground. I quickly jumped into the creek, and hid under its bank, bending down. The creek was not deep at all, so I did not even get any water in my long boots. The second shell exploded next to the bank, but it did not get me again, and I quickly ran away and threw myself down behind a tree. I was fine, just with some strong ringing in my head. The assault gun ceased fire and stood peacefully on the hill.

While I was thinking what to do, our ground attack planes flew in, Il-2 Shturmoviks, approximately twelve or fifteen planes. They first dropped their bombs and then started to plough up the enemy’s defences with missiles and fire from their guns and machine-guns. The assault gun disappeared from our sight, the enemy ceased fire, and under cover of the air attack I got the company up. We rushed forward as fast as we could, while we still had energy and while the enemy was depressed, and we tried to reach the top of the hill as quickly as possible. After we reached to top of the hill, the Shturmoviks ceased their attacks, assumed formation, waved their wings to us and flew away. I was very happy, it was for the first time that I saw such a successful cooperation of infantry and air force. I wish we had had it all the time! We also waved our hands to the pilots, shouting ‘Hurrah!’, thanking them for assistance. Apparently, it was the Brigade staff that organized the air support, as the hill was of great significance.

We found trenches, a well, several houses and barns on the hill. On the rear slope of the hill there was a steep descent into a deep hollow with a village; one could see a dozen huts and barns there. The Fritzes fled to the left of us, into a wood, evading the hollow. As we passed the German trenches I was starting to decide in which direction the attack should be continued – into the hollow or towards the grove, where the Germans fled – when a mass of large-calibre shells dropped on us.

Debris from barns, huts, the well, the shells, all flew into the air. The fire was heavy, explosions were going off all around us, and for a moment I was lost, thinking that that was the end for me and my soldiers. Some of my soldiers ducked by the destroyed huts and the well, others threw themselves towards the wood, as there were no explosions there, some ran down the slope. I ran away, stopped at a place where shells were not exploding and started to stop and gather soldiers around me; squad leaders assisted me in that. We ran along the ridge of that hill, stopped at the grove edge, lay down and started to dig in. The Germans were out of sight. The artillery strike that caught us by surprise suddenly stopped, apparently the Fritzes were saving ammo or thought that the job was done. They would often do that – deliver a short artillery strike on a concentration of infantry and then have a break. It was interesting that we did not suffer heavy losses from that artillery strike, just a few soldiers were wounded, but I found out that two soldiers were missing, they were greens, apparently, and they had run away when we were attacking the hill. I had noticed before that they always stayed by themselves, did not contact the old pals, only talked to each other. I had told the squad leader and the assistant platoon leader to keep an eye on those two, but they had other things to do in the attack, and the two soldiers ran away. To hell with them, they could not run far – and the river bridgehead was not that big. If those two had deserted, they would have been caught.

Company commander Senior Lieutenant Chernyshov arrived and gave us another order – to advance right through the wood, where the Fritzes had fled from the hill. When we deployed in a line and started our advance through the wood, the 2nd company of our battalion arrived; it had orders to advance on the right of our company. It cheered us up, as we were to advance with reinforcements, not alone. In general, attacking in a wood is different from other types of combat, say in open terrain or in built-up areas. You can’t see the enemy – there are trees, bushes and high grass all around; you don’t know what is going on with your neighbour. I rarely fought in such terrain. The Germans rarely set up defences in forests, and as a rule did not launch attacks in forests.

We walked for some time among the trees without any shooting. Company commander Nikolai Chernyshov was next to me, this was quite rare – apparently, the battalion commander had scolded him and he decided to lead the company himself. We all knew that Germans were dug in somewhere in the area, but still, the heavy machine-gun fire that they opened on us was sudden. As the enemy was close, the bullets did not whistle but flew as a dense swarm. When they hit a tree they made a sound, as if someone hit a tree with an axe, the sound was loud and juicy, one could hear that it was a strong impact. We had to lie down. We somehow dug in and started to look around, but because the young forest was dense we could see nothing, although we knew that the Fritzes were somewhere next to us. Company commander Chernyshov was shouting: ‘Bessonov, forward! Get the soldiers up and attack!’

I had to fulfil the order and shouted (because of the exchange of fire we could barely hear each other) to my assistant platoon leader and Sergeant Savkin: ‘Get the men up and attack!’ They were lying on the ground and looking back at me, as if they were saying, ‘Why don’t you get up yourself? Get them up yourself!’ And they were right – that was my job.

Ah, whatever! During a pause between two machine-gun bursts I drew myself up to my full height and shouted at the top of my lungs: ‘Get up, get up, you this and that! Follow me, charge, forward!’ A short and clear message – the situation called for it. Savkin and my deputy platoon commander (I forgot his name) jumped up from the ground at the same time as me and the whole company followed. We ran the distance to the German trenches, but they did not like hand-to-hand fighting and fled. We did not pursue them – they fled and to hell with them. We stopped in their trenches to have a break and decide what to do next. In principle, we had completed the mission, but German tank engines could be heard in front of us. The German tank engines had a special sound – a mournful one, different from our tank engines. It was hard to say how many tanks there were just from the sound.

Chernyshov walked up to me, sat down under a tree and we discussed the situation and further action. Chernyshov reported the situation to the battalion commander over the field ’phone and received an order to wait for the tanks to arrive. At that moment the Fritzes opened artillery fire, most likely from tank guns, and shells exploded, both short and over us. They did not know the company’s position and fired at random.

A shell hit the tree, beneath which Chernyshov and I were sitting; splinters wounded several men, including me. Chernyshov was not hit. All this happened in a twinkle of an eye – I did not even manage to realize that I was wounded and did not lie down on the ground – but something just bent me. I quickly ran away from the spot, shouted to Chernyshov that I was wounded and quickly – running and walking – went to the battalion’s aid post. They bandaged me in haste, and I went to the Brigade’s medical and sanitary platoon. It turned out that I was wounded in the right side of my chest, both shoulders and the left foot. They disinfected my wounds in the medical platoon and bandaged them. I was hoping that I would be sent to a hospital, but my dreams did not materialize. I did not want to stay in the medical platoon and went back to the battalion. I reported to the battalion commander and received permission to stay at the aid post. A couple of times I had to go to the medical platoon to change the bandages, the wounds healed, but the movements of my right hand were still limited, the wound was sore, the pain echoed in my chest (these splinters are still both in my shoulders and in my chest).

For about a week I hung around the kitchen (it had finally arrived and started to provide food to battalion’s men), until the battalion was transferred to another sector, where the situation became difficult. In my absence the platoon was led by my assistant platoon leader, a Jewish Senior Sergeant, whose last name I totally forget. He arrived in my platoon in June 1944 from an army unit. A brave and steady NCO, he was a good assistant to me. He proved himself a good soldier in action in Lvov. Soldiers of my platoon and even the company, especially the old hands, took to him straight away for his calm character, bravery and smartness in battle. He deserved to be reckoned with. It was a pity that soon after I was wounded he was killed, mortally wounded by a shell splinter in his chest. He was just 22 years old.

After I was wounded, tanks arrived to assist the companies. Just three T-34-85 tanks arrived, but they increased the morale of the soldiers. Already then, in mid-1944, the tank crews were afraid of Panzerfausts and we tank riders would sit at the front of the tanks when in forests. In such cases tanks were ordered to fire just armourpiercing shells at enemy tanks, not high-explosive shells. Everything seemed to be clear and tank crews were supposed to know that order and stick to it, but as the saying goes, every family has its black sheep. One of the tanks fired only one shell, it hit a tree and cut down all who stood next to it. Senior Sergeant Safronov, medic of our company, veteran of the battalion, was killed. He was 43 or 45 years old, we all respected him, he was a cheerful and brave ‘uncle’, he always provided first medical aid to wounded soldiers and was highly respected in the company. I enjoyed good friendly relations with him; when there were no soldiers around, he rarely addressed me with full military rank, but called me by name. Why did he have to be in the attacking line? Apparently, he wanted to provide medical aid directly on the battlefield.

As they told me later, both companies went through the forest and dug in in the field in front of the forest, among abandoned village houses. It was a good place to set a defence. The Fritzes – both infantry and tanks – disappeared out of sight and did not disturb the company, and our tanks also left.

A heavy thunderstorm started in the afternoon of the next day, and rain poured down. The company posted observers and soldiers hid in their shallow trenches, covered with rain capes. The night was pitch dark, nothing could be seen even at short distances. It was on that night that the Germans quietly attacked the battalion. It was quite untypical of the Germans, they rarely attacked at night, especially in such bad weather. Apparently, the battalion position was also important for the Fritzes. In flashes of lightning our observers spotted the Germans and opened fire, but it was too late, the Germans were already among the trenches and they rushed into the battalion defences. The soldiers could not put up proper resistance – they jumped out of the trenches and ran back towards the rear, but the Germans ran together with them. All the soldiers were mixed up, you could only see who was who in the lightning. The battalion’s soldiers (two companies, 20 to 30 men each), reached the initial lines in their ‘cross country race’ and stopped there. The Germans did not advance further, digging in almost at the forest edge. With the end of the thunderstorm and dawn, our company put itself in order and counted losses. We did have losses, but they were amazingly low.

An order to recapture the positions that we fled from came from the Brigade’s commander. A Katyusha battery (four vehicles) arrived to support the battalion. Soldiers had a chance to dry themselves after a horrible rain shower and prepare for an offensive during the day. The battalion commander ordered everyone from the battalion’s support units into the attacking line. As he said: ‘Send everyone, except for Bessonov.’ Junior Lieutenant Burkov, deputy battalion commander arrived to see that the order was fulfilled. Those support unit men that did not have weapons received them and some 25 or 30 of them were sent to the battalion companies.

I had a chance to see the Katyusha rocket launchers, their equipment for launching and aiming. As I have written before, they did not aim very accurately, twice I saw them hitting friendly troops, not the enemy. One time, at Dobropolie village, they hit positions of my platoon. It was a horrible weapon. If I am not mistaken, each vehicle (rocket launcher) carried 16 rockets (1.8 metres long), that made 64 rockets per battery, and they were all fired in one instance. The sound of their launch was quite loud.

In the afternoon Katyushas fired on the Germans; after the completion of the salvo the battalion launched the attack and quickly captured the trenches that it had had to abandon in the evening, during the thunderstorm. As some participants of the assault told me, the Katyusha salvo destroyed almost all the Germans. There was no resistance from the German side – there was simply no one left to fight. The positions were regained. That was it.

After several days the Germans calmed down, stopped their attacks and went on the defensive. In mid-September (15 to 17) we handed over our sector to a general army unit. We were transferred to the second echelon of the first Ukrainian front for replenishments in personnel, military hardware and equipment. During the operation that had lasted around two months, we had travelled 600 kilometres, in many cases we had to fight our way through. We liberated many settlements, including the cities of Lvov, Bobrka, Zolochev, Peremyshlyany and others. Our 6th Guards Mechanized Corps was awarded for the Lvov-Sandomir operation, mostly for liberation of Lvov – the Corps received an honorary title of ‘Lvov’, while our 49th Mechanized Brigade was awarded with the Order of Bogdan Khmelnitski. The Lvov-Sandomir operation was over for us.