Tank Rider: Into the Reich with the Red Army

THE BERLIN–PRAGUE OPERATION

The artillery barrage opened early on the morning of 16 April, 1945. Then bombers and ground attack planes delivered strong strikes on the enemy’s defences. After the infantry units had broken through, it was our Tank Army’s turn to go into battle. Tanks with tank riders had already lined up in a column on a road that ran along the edge of a wood. For some reason a heavy silence hung in the air; we could not see the enemy and it was a bit scary. It is always hard to get used again to combat operations conditions after a break, especially given the fact that many of the soldiers had not been in action before and did not feel confident. That is why there was some chaos: when we started to mount our tanks after the battalion commander’s order, the Germans opened artillery fire on us. It was extremely unexpected, and the barrage was short, but concentrated and ‘juicy’. We were all gone from the tanks in a twinkle of an eye, and our entire battalion ran into the wood. However, after we had covered some 100 metres, we stopped and came back to our senses, especially now that the barrage had ceased. We ran back to the tanks. It was silent again. The only casualty in our company was the Senior Lieutenant, Grigori Vyunov, who was wounded in the head. He was quickly sent to a hospital and I never saw him again and did not hear anything about him. The battalion commander ordered me to take over the company. We quickly debriefed the situation, received our portion of obscene curses, calmed down and received an order not to leave the tanks. After some time our column moved forward, to the west. Again I was the only officer remaining in the company – Shakulo was wounded again and was hanging around the administrative platoon of the battalion, Guschenkov was apparently also in hospital, while Grigori Mikheev stayed with the damaged tanks. But I was once more unlucky with promotion; several days later Senior Lieutenant Chernyshov came back from hospital. He came running into my shelter during a fastpaced battle for a village and told me that following the battalion commander’s decision he had been appointed company commander.

We were conducting the offensive in difficult forest terrain that abounded with rivers, channels and swampy areas. We had to stick to the roads, which crippled our manoeuvres. The enemy put up stubborn resistance, bullets often ricocheted like rain from the armour of our tanks. We could not abandon tanks on the move, and only by a miracle were we without fatalities. The enemy’s air force bombed the battalion’s column, acting especially boldly in the absence of our fighter aircraft. I have already written that they very rarely covered us.

The roads were covered with mines, blocked with barricades and heaps of rubbish, especially in built up areas and in front of them, as well as under railway and road bridges, which had high embankments. They used Panzerfausts against our tanks. Battles raged during day and night without any break and this was seriously exhausting.

The Germans were afraid of us Russian soldiers. Sometimes we saw unfinished hot meals in houses, cattle was abandoned in barns. There were cases when entire families – two or three persons – would commit suicide and hang themselves, afraid of Russian revenge. Most of the villages that we captured were empty; we swept through some of them without combat, as the Germans had quickly abandoned them, but sometimes they would leave Panzerfaust teams behind to destroy our tanks. I prohibited my soldiers from eating the food that was left on the tables, as I was afraid that it had been poisoned. Whenever possible, we cooked our food ourselves – there was enough food left in German houses, or we ate pickled and preserved food that we found in cellars – one could find a lot of food there. In general, we didn’t starve. We were quite cautious with wine, vodka and other spirits; for a joke we first asked Alexander Guschenkov to drink it, and when we saw that he was all right, we would drink it too. My orderly Drozd always had alcohol in his canteen instead of water – I tried to prevent him many times, but it was useless. Both Petr Shakulo and I were not big fans of alcohol, and generally there were few hard drinkers in the battalion, but there were some – Alexander Guschenkov, Yuri Grigoriev and Grigori Shtokolov.

Alexander Guschenkov was a good comrade of mine, he was almost ten years older than me. He did not have a better attitude than anyone else, but he always shared all things he had with me and never forgot about me. He was just the right type of comrade. It was he who hoped I would be lightly wounded – to stay for some time in a hospital on a bed with white linen, not in trenches on the ground next to the fire.

Despite the German resistance, our battalion’s and the Brigade’s advance was successful. The newcomers fought well, although their training had been short. I did not have anything to complain about. Pre-empting the events that followed, I note that from 16 to 25 April, 1945, we advanced some 450 kilometres through Germany in nine days. The Germans definitely had fewer tanks – they must have lost them in previous heated battles against our troops. However, their shortage of tanks was to some extent compensated for by Panzerfausts and assault guns – the self-propelled artillery pieces with weak armour. However, the enemy’s air force was active, and it remained so for some time and we were hit hard many times.

On 18 April my platoon, three tanks and Lieutenant Fedor Popov with his machine-gun platoon were in the Brigade’s vanguard and were crossing the Spree river in a narrow and shallow place. The other shore was very steep and the tanks stopped at the shore, unable to drive further. I walked up the steep bank with my soldiers and walked forward a bit, but we were pinned down by intensive machine-gun fire from Fritzes. All of a sudden I heard a rude commanding voice from a ditch or a trench: ‘Lieutenant, why the hell are you lying here, go forward, get the men to assault!’ I looked and saw that it was Colonel Koretski – at that time he was commander of the 6th Mechanized Corps. How on earth did he end up in front of our troops? He must have just got lost. Apparently, I was more scared of Vasily Ignatievich Koretski than the Germans – I jumped up like crazy and literally threw myself forward with a cry ‘Get up, follow me, assault, forward!’ The platoon’s soldiers opened fire; all stood up like one and assaulted the enemy.

Assault, assault… Many things have been written about this in literature, but an assault can be of many kinds, and the worst one among them is assaulting across an open field. First you walk, then you move forward in short rushes and as you get close to the enemy – you run as fast as you can! And the fear you go through during all this time – bullets whistling in the air, German shells and mines exploding all around. Assaulting an enemy’s position is a horrible thing for a person to do, no one knows his psychological condition during an assault and cannot honestly describe it – it would be a lie or something made up. But regardless of how scared you are, no one will fulfil your orders for you. You just run and think: ‘Will they get me or not?’ But more often you forget this as well, thinking just one thing: ‘Where is the enemy?’ If we encountered the enemy at short distance, say at 50 metres, we would cover this distance in a rush and capture the position. A platoon leader’s task is to lead this rush: ‘Forward run, open fire! Kill Fritzes!’ But if the enemy stopped us by fire at a longer distance, then the company would deploy in a line and we would only start the assault after the company or battalion commander’s order, with tanks or without them. Such an assault is scarier and there are more losses, as sometimes we did not have enough breath to run. The platoon leader’s task in such a situation is not to allow the soldiers to lie down; this is why you run shouting ‘Forward!’. The enemy would normally flee and we would jump in his trenches, barely catching our breath or continued to pursue the enemy, if we had energy for it.

The enemy fled this time too, reluctant to take us on in hand-to-hand fighting, but I decided to run as far as possible from Koretski and we ran almost to the houses of the village, where we were again stopped by intensive machine-gun fire. The platoon was pinned down. Popov was at our right flank with his platoon. There were thick bushes there, while in front of my platoon there was an open field with grass. I was lying there and saw the grass being cut down by the concentrated fire. It was good that we were lying behind a small elevation; it was very important, but some gloomy thoughts were revolving in my head: ‘They can kill me here…’ All of a sudden the machine-gun on our right ceased fire; Popov’s machine-gunners had suppressed it. The second machine-gun went silent soon afterwards. We rushed into the village; the Germans fled from it. It grew silent. Fedor did a great job and helped us out at the right moment, otherwise how long would we have to lie on the ground and listen to the grass growing? The German MG34 machine-gun was a fearsome weapon, we could not lift our heads from the ground when it fired. But thank goodness everything went well and we did not have casualties. Both Fedor Popov and I decided not to go to Colonel Koretski, and neither did he call us; apparently he had left the riverbank and carried on with his business. This is how we accidentally rescued our Corps commander – but that went unnoticed, some forgot about the case while the others simply did not know about it. A runner from the battalion commander found us and passed on the order to come back to the river and advance along it, to a place that had a convenient crossing, where the tanks and the battalion would be crossing.

On 20 April the battalion received new orders to attack in a northwestern direction towards Potsdam (a suburb of Berlin) and Brandenburg, and further towards Ketzin, thus enveloping Berlin from the west and completing the encirclement of the enemy’s troops in that city. That was the Brigade’s and the Corps’ objective. The 4th Guards Tank Army had been advancing due west, to the south of Berlin, towards the Elbe river. But the first Belorussian front under G. K. Zhukov had a hard time capturing Berlin, and Stavka redirected our Army and General Rybalko’s Army towards Berlin, or more precisely against its southern and western outskirts.

The terrain on this new direction of advance was drier; there were fewer natural water obstacles, but there were more villages and tidy German forests. We would not get more than three or four hours of sleep a day. It was already warm in Germany, so we slept not far from the roads in the grass. They fired on our column very frequently, either from woods or from any village that was next to the road. If this fire frustrated our further advance, we would as a rule dismount tanks, engage the enemy and force the enemy to retreat or destroy him. In most cases the Germans fled, leaving small arms, machine-guns and Panzerfausts behind. Such actions slowed down our advance, but on the other hand, we had to free the road from the enemy.

In one such battle Drozd and I almost kicked the bucket. They fired on us from a wood, and we immediately dismounted the tank. The 3rd company of the battalion assaulted the enemy together with my platoon (or rather, company). Everything became confused; the soldiers of our company were mixed with the soldiers of the 3rd company. I tried to restore some order, but it did not work; the platoon leaders from the 3rd company had just arrived in the battalion and I did not even know their names. We drove the enemy out of his well-dug trenches and stopped there for a brief halt, trying to see the situation and work out where the Fritzes had fled. We could see some buildings in front of us, which meant that the Germans had run there and we would have to drive them out. At that moment the enemy opened artillery fire on the trenches, but their shots so far exceeded the target. I pointed out a place some 100 metres from us, closer to the houses, to my orderly Drozd and ordered the men to dig skirmisher’s trenches there, in order to close in with the Germans for the next assault. The soldiers of my platoon and then the whole company ran forward on my command. The other company, the 3rd one, stayed where it was. Why did I decide to leave the trenches? The enemy knew the location of those trenches; the first salvo went over the target, which meant that the second salvo would definitely hit us. I advised the Lieutenant from the 3rd company to leave the trenches, but he stayed behind and even took my trench, when I left it and ran to Drozd, who was already digging the dirt. It was my turn to dig deeper, so he could have a rest – it was hard to dig with a small entrenching tool while lying on the ground, but it was impossible to stand up. The Germans were firing their small arms and would immediately send anyone who stood up to his grave. Our entire company was digging in, in military terms – concentrating for an assault. Just as I expected, the Germans opened concentrated artillery fire on the trenches – apparently, they had an excellent artillery observer. The 3rd company had casualties, but we had left the dangerous spot in the right time. The orderly of that Lieutenant ran up to the skirmisher’s trench that I shared with Drozd and informed us that their trench had been hit by a shell or a mine and the platoon leader was dead, while he himself had been lying next to the trench and escaped unscathed. Again my company soldiers and I were lucky. We captured the village, but did not pursue the enemy. There were plenty of such fast-paced clashes, the Germans held on to every village, hill, road crossing, a highway or railway embankment, a river or channel, even with small forces. This is why our advance was delayed every time we had to drive the enemy away.

This is exactly how it happened on one occasion: the column was stopped by small arms fire from a forest. The tank crews were afraid of the Panzerfaust teams attacks and did not advance further. The battalion commander ordered us to attack the enemy, and the battalion’s companies together with the machine-gun platoons of Guschenkov and Greg Kes went into the forest. I do not know where company commanders Kostenko, Chernyshov and Belyakov were – the battalion commander led us. We deployed in a line and started our cautious advance through the forest. We did not see the Germans – thick bushes blocked our view. Then, I do not remember on whose command, we rushed forward shouting, firing our submachine-guns and light machine-guns. The enemy fled, abandoning his trenches; in some places there were Panzerfaust missiles and other weapons on the ground. Our company mixed with men of the 2nd company during the assault. Company’s Sergeant Major Michael Bratchenko somehow ended up next to me; apparently the battalion commander had sent everyone who could carry weapons into action, as some men fell behind because their tanks had broken down. We walked out to the edge of the forest and I proposed moving a bit further – the forest edge was an excellent reference point for German artillery. However, the 2nd company’s officers and Guschenkov and Kes disagreed with me. Before we could finish our argument, the enemy opened up with heavy artillery and mortar fire. It all happened very suddenly, and only during the barrage did the soldiers start to duck for cover. It is interesting that we did not have losses. I stood there as if I was dumbfounded, and for some time did not have any idea where I should lie down. A mine exploded at my feet. I was enveloped in smoke, finally came to my senses and threw myself under a tank that had driven up to us. Then Bratchenko and I ran a bit further on, as we were afraid that the tank would squash us. The firing quickly ceased and it became silent again. Bratchenko and I stood up and went to find out about the losses in the company. It turned out that there were no casualties, and it was quite amazing – I had not been under such an intensive strike for a long time. Guschenkov, Kes and two more officers were unharmed. I do not remember the names of those two officers as they did not stay in the battalion for long, they left soon afterwards. They had already calmed down and were about to deal with the stress with a good shot of vodka, but they did not make it, as Bratchenko and I arrived. It turned out that they were raising a glass (in fact, it was a mess lid) for the resting in peace of Evgeni Bessonov and the Sergeant Major. They had to revise the toast and raise the glass for our health when we showed up. They told me that they saw that a mine hit me, and when smoke cleared, I was not there. This is why they thought that Bratchenko had been killed and I had been blown into pieces. However, my jackboots were torn by splinters and greatcoat was also full of holes, but time and again I was unhurt, just like the rest of the company. It turned out that they ducked for cover in the German trenches. It is good that everything ended well. A runner from the battalion commander found us and passed on an order to come out of the forest and mount the tanks to continue our advance.

The Germans abandoned their positions and fled from the village. I do not remember the names of all those villages; there were many such villages along the route of our advance. If they had fled, that meant that they would put up a more stubborn resistance elsewhere. The closer we came to Berlin, the stiffer German resistance became, but they had fewer heavy Tiger and Panther tanks. They started to use more of the weak assault guns and Panzerfausts.

On 21 April our Brigade came up to the town of Zauhvitz and the action that followed lasted all day long. The Germans found a perfect defensive position. The terrain in front of the town was swampy and impassable for tanks; it was also impossible to dig in and hard to assault across the swamp – it was a quagmire. This swamp stretched some 300 or 400 metres before the town. The Germans placed tanks behind houses, set guns to fire over open sights, built up machine-gun nests and carefully placed snipers – they hit us hard. We were already used to going into battle with tanks and felt quite uncomfortable without them. It was one thing when a tank, a huge machine, was advancing toward the Germans, firing its main gun and machineguns, and the enemy already felt uncomfortable, but it was quite another when we assaulted only with infantry. The Germans had machine-guns, mortars and all this was against lightly armed Soviet soldiers. We assaulted the small town of Zauhvitz straight from the march, without any clear directions – the order was just to go and capture it. Such things often happened. We deployed in an attacking line and moved towards the German defences as quickly as possible, running, before the Germans opened fire. We tried to run forward, as it is harder to hit moving targets. All of a sudden all the enemy’s weapons opened fire, and the snipers started their work. In such moment a soldier wants to lie down, but I ordered ‘Forward! Don’t stop!’ and myself advanced forward in short rushes. We had our first casualties. The soldiers moved forward in short rushes, but as the firing intensified, they just lay down, seeking cover and a more or less dry spot, where you could dig in. I saw the 2nd and the 3rd companies also ceasing their attack on our right flank; we did not have anyone on our left flank. The ‘Slavs’ were pinned down, and it would be hard to get them up and attack. Even more so now the snipers were active – they fired at any move in our line. You could not stand up so we had to sneak on the ground. Drozd and I crept to some house and dug in behind it. I wanted to go into the house, but they warned me not to do it – the whole ground had been presighted by the Germans. I exchanged opinions with my squad leaders, and they proposed that we stayed put. I also decided to take my time and wait for artillery support from our side, a Katyusha salvo. These were not old men of the Volkssturm defending the ground in front of us, but experienced German troops, probably even Vlasov’s troops, with whom we had already had encounters. I ordered the evacuation of the wounded and they were carried by men crawling to the forest behind us. The medical platoon’s vehicle with Dr. Pankova and the medics were somewhere over there. The enemy turned out to have more forces than our command thought. It was impossible to capture the town on an important road junction with just infantry without artillery support – this was exactly what I said in my report to the battalion commander’s orderly and then to the deputy chief of staff of our battalion Senior Lieutenant Michael Romanov. He sneaked out to us, and then Drozd and I were barely able to send him back safely – German fire was intensive, but we knew safe routes of retreat. I showed Romanov what a daytime assault would be like. Of course we could assault and all get killed there, but what would be the point? Who would go on to Berlin? Why on earth did I have to attack without any support, send my guys to a certain death and be killed myself before the end of the war? Why the hell did I need this? Where were the artillery, mortars, Katyushas – they had been silent for a long time, it was time for them to act! There was no artillery support, but I was supposed to have it! Tanks did not support us either, they were cowering from enemy fire. An instruction from the battalion commander came a bit later. It said that I should stay put and wait for further orders. They had finally understood that one had to fight the war skilfully using all the resources at one’s disposal. Where were company commander Chernyshov and platoon leaders Mikheev and Guschenkov? Again I had to lead the whole company, not just my platoon. There was absolutely no co-ordination between the companies of our battalion in that battle. I cannot say anything about the other battalions.

They brought the battalion’s artillery to us – two 57 mm guns that the crews man-handled forwards. They put their guns behind the company, in a small forest. Then an SU-85 self-propelled gun arrived; apparently it was from the Corps’ armour regiment, but I did not know the guys in its crew. However, the gun did not manage to fire a single shot, as a spare fuel tank on its back part caught fire. The vehicle could have been saved by merely dumping the fuel tank on the ground, but the gun crew did not even try to do it. Our battalion’s artillery crews fired several rounds on targets in the town and even knocked something out. I was observing the enemy when a mine exploded on the breastwork of my foxhole and the edge of the foxhole even collapsed. I was buried in it, and who knows where the mine splinters flew. Everything was all right, although the mine fell only a foot short of the foxhole. I was not killed – again I was lucky, which happened time and again in that war. My orderly Drozd, who had been in another foxhole, crawled up to me, dug me out, checked if I was wounded by splinters and told me that I was lucky. I had bells ringing in my head for several days, but later the ringing disappeared.

In this manner we spent almost the whole day. Finally, in the late afternoon our artillery opened heavy fire and the Katyushas fired several salvos. We also received an order to go into action. I got my company up and the neighbouring units also joined our assault. The enemy did not fire so intensively any more, and under the cover of our artillery we quickly reached the outskirts of the place. It was already growing dark. We quickly walked through the town and reached the opposite side of it; the enemy was retreating, returning fire at us. It was hard to walk in the streets, as they were barricaded with heaps of roof tiling that fell from the roofs. Artillery and mortar crews did a great job, the enemy suffered significant losses. They should have done this a long time before, then we would not have had to lie the whole day hungry in a swamp under enemy fire.

The soldiers, excited by the battle, shared their joys. We felt like having a snack, but the ‘Mount the tanks!’ order came and we moved on forward to finish off the enemy. A dark night fell. We had a snack with what we had managed to grab from the houses. There was no time to relax, we had been delayed in front of Zauhvitz, but after we captured it, the roads to west and north-west were open.

The night march from Zauhvitz went well, we just drove through some villages without dismounting tanks, sometimes opening fire from the tanks, and sometimes merely kicking the Germans out of our way, and rushed forward, without delaying and engaging the enemy.

Before that, from 22 to 24 April, the Brigade and the battalion captured Spremberg, Velzov and other towns. In late April the Brigade captured Calau, Luckau, Dahme, Belzig, Luckenwalde, Lehnin, Brandenburg, Ketzin and Potsdam in three or four days.

At dawn on 22 April we approached a high railway embankment and were stopped by intensive fire. We could have quickly destroyed the German delaying force and moved on forward, but the problem was that the passage under the railway bridge was filled with sand and fortified with big logs, connected with metal girders. We did not manage to destroy that barricade. The tanks turned to the right and drove to look for a place to cross the railway, while we, the tank riders, were thrown off so we could break through the defences on the embankment. That time it was the 2nd and the 3rd companies and Lieutenant Popov’s machine-gunners that captured the embankment. I crossed the embankment after the 3rd company. Lehnin village was behind the embankment; the 2nd and the 3rd companies assaulted the village right from the embankment, while I moved a bit to the right with my company, on the road that went out from that village. Three or four T-34 tanks arrived at the scene in that moment, and sitting on one of them was our political officer Captain Gerstein. The tanks stopped, Gerstein jumped off the tank and for some reason shouted: ‘Bessonov, quickly get on the tanks, quickly!’ We ‘saddled’ the tanks and moved forward. I was on the first tank with some of my men, while Captain Gerstein and the rest of the company were on the other tanks. I do not remember where the battalion commander and company commander were at that time. We rode on tanks for some time and all of a sudden came under fire from trenches on the right side of the road. The tanks stopped, I ordered: ‘Dismount! Fire! Fire!’ and the whole company ran towards those trenches, firing nonstop from our submachine-guns. Right in front of me there was a Fritz in a trench. I tried to cut him down with my German submachine-gun, the one that used to hang over my bed during training, but apparently during the skirmish at the embankment some sand had got into the bolt. I jerked the bolt, pulled the trigger, but it did not fire. The German did not think long, grabbed his rifle and aimed at me. I had a thought flashing in my head: ‘This is the end, Bessonov, your life is over.’ Right at that time a submachine-gun burst sounded in the air and the German dropped dead to the bottom of his trench. It turned out that it was Drozd who cut him down with a Soviet PPSh submachine-gun, which never jammed in battle, in any situation. Why the hell did I carry that German submachine-gun? We jumped across the trenches, some Germans fled, while the rest were killed. Andrey took away my submachine-gun, took out the clip and threw the submachine-gun away. He gave me the clip, as its ammo could be used in my Walther pistol. We lay down after capturing the trenches, as we were too exhausted to run, but then Gerstein arrived at the scene and ordered: ‘Forward, Bessonov, don’t stop, we must capture those houses! Come on, get soldiers up and attack. Faster!’ I had never seen him in the attacking line before that.

I got my soldiers up and we rushed into those houses, which were some 250 or 300 metres away. There were just three or four houses there. The Germans fled; even their two self-propelled guns drove away at high speed on a road that had trees planted on its sides. The alley went to the village, which we could see at some 300 metres. One self-propelled gun managed to knock out one of our T-34 tanks in an ambush. The tank was burnt out and the whole crew was killed. All these things happened before our eyes – it was so horrible that I do not even want to write about it. We moved forward a bit and dug in by a hedge that edged an open field that stretched to the next village. I sent one squad down the lane to check out where the Fritzes were, but the squad came under fire and dug in on both sides of the lane. The 2nd and 3rd companies of the battalion arrived and dug in on our left flank. We did not have any further orders. We had time to feed the soldiers. We found some food, cooked it and satisfied our hunger.

At midday a regiment of 37 mm anti-aircraft guns, eight guns and eight trucks, quickly rushed pass our positions. I have no idea why the regiment commander sent them there. The trucks stopped in the open, the guns turned their barrels towards the enemy and opened fire on the village. They did not fire for long, as the Germans returned fire with artillery and all the crews were killed or wounded, and almost all the guns were destroyed. Then the commander of the regiment arrived on the scene – he was drunk and could barely stand on his feet. An orderly soldier was with him. This Colonel behaved in a strange manner: first he ran out into the field, but the Germans fired on him and he had to return to the gardens. After that he started to run back and forth along our line and try to get the battalion to attack. As we did not have any orders from our command for attack, I ran off to get out of harm’s way, to the combat outpost and lay down there. The Colonel was getting more and more angry, waving his pistol in the air, cursing and shouting, but no one from our battalion reacted and no one was going to obey him. The Colonel got so mad that he grabbed the submachine-gun from his orderly and executed 3rd platoon leader Lieutenant Antipov on the spot in his foxhole. Antipov was around 35 years old. He was a calm and slow person who had just recently arrived in the battalion. He was a quiet and regular officer. I wanted to kill that Colonel or at least wound him; I even ran forward, a bit closer to the enemy, so that my shot could be perceived as a German one, especially given the fact that they continued firing at us. But my hand did not lift against my countryman. I could not do it; I just did not have the stomach for it. The deputy chief of staff, Senior Lieutenant Mikhail Romanov, also wanted to shoot the Colonel, but, apparently, he also did not have the stomach to shoot a Soviet citizen, even such a filthy one. Soon after that officers from the anti-aircraft regiment staff came running and took the Colonel away by force to their HQ. I never saw him again, but our comrade was killed, not in battle, but by a drunken bastard. This Colonel also destroyed his regiment by being drunk – a sober person just could not do such a stupid thing. There are really some bastards in this world… I heard later that the Colonel was eventually brought before a court-martial.

After the Colonel was taken away by his staff officers, a female medic came along with a wounded soldier from an anti-aircraft gun crew. She ran several more times to the destroyed guns, each time coming back with a wounded soldier, carrying him on a raincoat or on her back. She was creeping there under enemy fire and apparently got tired, or maybe she was scared. Anyway, she sat on the bottom of my foxhole and burst into tears. After she calmed down a bit, she asked for a smoke and then for a drink. She stayed in the foxhole for a little while and then again went on to rescue more wounded, saying farewell with: ‘Lieutenant, wish me luck, so that I might survive this bloodbath.’ A brave girl.

Soon afterwards the battalion left that area, and again we drove on tanks in the night to complete our tasks. However, that night march ended up with a comedy, as people say, enough to make a cat laugh – we were driving almost the whole night (the tank riders were dozing off) and came back to exactly the same place from which we had started our march in the evening. I do not remember such an embarrassment for the Brigade’s or the tank regiment’s staffs in other operations. It is quite impossible to get lost in Germany: all roads have road signs with names of localities, directions and distances. This was how we again lost time, again falling behind our schedule. Then we had to speed up and complete the mission. That time I was not in front of the Brigade – another company was the Brigade’s vanguard. War is war, all kinds of things happened, even funny things. Regardless of how hard it was for us, junior officers and privates, we had our sense of humour. As soon as we had a break from fighting, one could hear laughter, jokes and stories – Lieutenant Grigori Kes, the machine-gun platoon leader from the battalion’s machine-gun company, was especially skilful in that. A happy and cheerful person, he was respected by all.

The enemy’s air force rarely raided our column any more. The Red Army captured most of their airfields, and only a few airfields or highway strips remained in German hands. We mostly had to fight the ground troops of the enemy, but on 23 April the German air force did deliver a horrible strike on the Brigade’s column. Apparently, it was the Luftwaffe’s last strike, their swan song. We thought that the Germans could not employ their air force any more, but it did happen, and we suffered significant losses. The entire Brigade’s column was on the move in daytime, some companies were on tanks, others were on Studebaker trucks. The Brigade’s staff with the Brigade’s commander Colonel Turkin and his deputy (political officer) Lieutenant Colonel Skryago were also there in the column. As soon as the column entered a small forest, enemy aircraft appeared in the air. These were fighter-bombers, some ten or twelve aircraft. The planes dived, dropped their bombs and prepared for the second dive. Even before the planes appeared, an air raid alarm sounded, but it was a bit too late. The tank column stopped and we quickly dismounted the tanks, but almost no one made it away from the road. We were lucky that the Germans dropped their bombs without aiming; the bombs fell far from the road way over their target.

I had time to run just several metres from the road, when I bumped into Lieutenant-Colonel Skryago. He was also running from the road, but he apparently got exhausted and was short of breath, as he was a fat guy with a big belly. He asked me: ‘Help me, Bessonov, I do not know where my orderly is.’ Before we could make a step, a Fritz plane appeared. It flew along the road at extremely low altitude, almost hitting the treetops, and fired its machine-guns. Skryago and I just froze, we were standing there as if we were dumbstruck. We were just standing and looking at the bullets kicking up mud, and we saw those bullets hitting the dust closer and closer to us. We both thought that this was the end for us, as the fire was very dense, but a miracle happened again – the burst stopped just a few metres short. The plane soared upwards to take another dive. Yes, we were extremely lucky just before the end of the war! The Lieutenant-Colonel and I regained our senses and ran further from the road. I literally had to pull him, as he could barely move his feet. I saw two or three more or less thick trees and we lay down behind them. The air raid ended soon, but the battalion had losses. Lieutenant Colonel Skryago went to the staff, while I went to my battalion. It was good that my company did not have losses. As soon as we were about to mount the tanks, another air-raid warning sounded in the air, and numerous enemy aircraft appeared in the air. Soldiers scattered running in the forest, while I with Senior Lieutenant Anatoly Kashintsev, commander of the mortar company of the battalion, jumped into a trench right on the road. Then we ran in short rushes further and hid in another trench (apparently, the Germans had dug them even before our arrival). Suddenly a big bullet fell from the breastwork to the bottom of the trench. When I picked it up, it was still hot. We were again lucky that the bullet did not hit us; because of the noise of the air raid we had not even heard the bullet’s whistling. We decided to leave that trench as well, ran further from the road and lay down behind a tree. The soldiers also scattered in the forest. I lost my men from sight; everyone saved their lives by themselves. The air raid was awful. The planes continued their assault, dropping bombs and firing incendiary shells at tanks. German pilots dived almost to the very ground and fired their machine-guns. They fired not only at the highway, but also at the forest at the road. Planes dived in groups of three and five, firing long machine-gun bursts not only at the tanks, but also at the pinned-down infantry. I had not seen such an air raid since the Lvov battles. It is hard to say how long the raid was, but apparently it lasted at least two or three hours. Our fighters were not there, we only had one 37 mm anti-aircraft gun, but it did not help much. After the air raid we went back to our units. Both Kashintsev and I and the soldiers went to the road. We saw people standing around the bomb crater, which was on the trench where we had previously hidden and heard them talking about us. We arrived at the scene, both safe and sound. Then they started to guess who had been killed in that trench and decided that it was a truck driver. I was again lucky – intuition and luck saved my life.

We started to check the casualties. Casualties were significant, both in personnel and equipment: over ten trucks were burnt out, and several tanks were destroyed. A bomb exploded next to a T-34 tank, the tank was lifted up and crashed down with all its weight on the men that were hiding under it, while the main gun was almost torn away from the turret. After the explosion it stood vertically up from the turret. It must have been a large bomb if it had enough explosive energy to lift and move a 30-ton tank. There were dead and wounded among the tank riders, truck drivers and tank crews, and we searched the forest for the remaining dead and wounded. Luckily, in our company and in the battalion just a few were killed. Wounded were gathered next to the medical truck in order to send them to the rear – there were more wounded than dead. When we put ourselves in order and could continue the march, the column left the ill-fated forest. There was an open field in front of us, and we tried to drive across it as quickly as possible, fearing another air raid. Indeed, three Messerschmidt fighters appeared. However, the 37 mm anti-aircraft automatic gun crew set an example of courage and bravery in that situation. The crew quickly prepared the gun for fire, and when the Germans started to dive on us, they opened fire with tracer shells. The first Messer could not stand the fire and turned to the side, the other two planes also ceased their attacks. I was standing behind a Studebaker truck and saw the tracer shells flying accurately towards their target. Fighters tried to dive two or three more times, but could not take the fire from the anti-aircraft gun and flew away. Our guys did a great job; they were not afraid of the air raid and forced the German pilots to cease their attacks on the column. I should mention that during that assault the tank riders did not scatter, but stood behind the tanks and trucks, observing the duel. It was the Germans that did not have nerves or courage against our anti-aircraft crew. When the planes left, we moved forward, as we had to catch up with the schedule. I was not in the vanguard with my platoon or rather company. Sometimes the battalion commander Major Kozienko would order: ‘Bessonov – forward!’ and show me the route of advance on the map, pointing at the place for a stop and where I should wait for the main body of the battalion and the Brigade, but it happened more rarely than before.

That time company commander Nikolai Chernyshov again was absent from the company. The battalion commander called me up and gave me an order to move forward on three tanks with the company and Fedor Popov’s machine-gun platoon from battalion’s machinegun company. Tank regiment commander Stolyarov and the Brigade’s commander Colonel Turkin were also there – Turkin was back from the hospital after being wounded in February 1945 when a Panzerfaust team destroyed his APC. I really did not want to go first: I had only few soldiers let and I wanted to spare at least them till the end of the war, but I had my orders and I had to fulfil them.

We were moving forward successfully, everything was quiet, and as always ‘all of a sudden’ we were caught by enemy fire before we could reach the forest. Our tanks stopped, the tank riders dismounted. Everyone stood behind the tanks – we had to find out what was going on. The enemy was firing, mostly from small arms, from the forest on the right of the highway. We had to drive the enemy out of his positions, as the whole Brigade was about to arrive. Lieutenant Popov also dismounted his platoon, took his two Maxim machineguns from the tanks and we prepared to assault the Germans, but their positions could not be seen in the forest. We made a deal with the tank crews that they would slowly move forward, while the tank riders would use them for cover. Two soldiers were to sit on each tank in order to have a better view of the terrain and guard the tanks from Panzerfaust teams.

This was the manner in which we started our slow advance towards the enemy. We reached a fruit garden, the fruit trees were in full blossom – it was late April and the weather in Germany was warm. Behind the garden there was an open field, which continued all the way to a village. Popov’s platoon and our company did not go further but lay down in the orchard. The enemy’s snipers were delivering aimed rifle fire. The tanks also stopped, fearing Panzerfaust attack. They did not want to die, but did we, the infantry, want to? As it turned out later, there were no Panzerfausts there, just eight or twelve snipers. Popov’s machine-gun platoon opened fire on the forest edge, and half of the company, some twelve or fourteen soldiers rushed to assault on my command, while approximately the same number of men gave them fire support. There was an open field up to the forest. The soldiers ran into the German trenches, and killed some of them; others fled, while one Fritz was taken prisoner. The Fritz was a stubborn one; when my soldier ran up to his trench, he fired at him at point-blank range, but luckily, only lightly wounded him in his forearm. They pulled the Fritz out of his foxhole and brought him to me; he was armed with a sniper rifle. I was stressed and angry after the assault and shouted at the German, mostly in Russian, and then hit him twice on his ear. They bandaged our wounded soldier. This was a strong and brave soldier, a former Ukrainian partisan. He would normally fire from his RPD (the Degtyarev infantry machine-gun) on the move during an assault. Normally we fired from that machinegun lying on the ground, as it weighed 12.5 kilograms with the ammo drum. It is a pity that I forgot the name of the guy.

I started to interrogate the Fritz, as I knew a bit of German. He had fourteen decorations, and had received one decoration, the Iron Cross, personally from the hands of Adolf Hitler. He had been fighting against the Red Army for a long time – a pure Nazi, member of the German Nazi party. He got another box on the ears from me. In general, I never beat up or harmed prisoners, but in this case I lost my self-control.

The main body of the Brigade arrived, including our battalion. I reported the results of the battle and the captured Fritz to the company and battalion commanders. Guys from the Brigade’s intelligence section came running to take the prisoner away, I told them to go to hell, but the battalion commander ordered me to give the prisoner to the intelligence officers, saying that it was Turkin’s order.

The Brigade did not go deeper into the forest, as it received a new order – to continue its attack in a different direction. As soon as the Brigade’s column formed on the road, Il-2 Shturmoviks appeared in the air. Apparently, they mistook us for Germans and started to deploy for attack, and they were at least 20 to 25 planes. Soldiers ran out into the field from the highway, waved their hats, hands and even shouted. We did not have recognition flares to show them that we were Russian. Finally, someone fired a green flare, then some more, and this saved us from big trouble. The group leader realized that we were friendly troops and stopped its dive, followed by other pilots. They formed their group, waved their wingtips at us and flew away. All is well that ends well.

The Brigade also moved on. It was probably the other battalion of the Brigade that was in the vanguard, not us. I do not know anything about the combat operations of the other two battalions of the Brigade, which is why I do not write about them. I had the impression that our battalion was always the first in battles, as well as my company. The only thing I know about the other battalions is that they also had losses. In the following battles we went into battle in turns: one battalion was in action, the second would be in reserve, while the third one would be resting, waiting for its turn to go into battle.

On one of those days our battalion was resting and the 2nd and the 3rd battalions were in action. We were staying at several houses at a roadside. The soldiers went to sleep after dinner, while I got under a truck, put some straw on the ground and also fell asleep. In the evening, or rather in the night, Alexander Guschenkov, the machinegun platoon leader of our company, found me, woke me up and dragged me into a house for a snack. The party was in full swing. Some seven to nine men sat around the table: Tolya Kashintsev, Alexei Belyakov and others. There were many snacks on the table and a whole battery of vodka and wine bottles. The officers were happy to see me, made me sit down, poured vodka and gave me some snacks. They wouldn’t let me go from the table. It had been a long time since we had all gathered for such a party. I wanted to go to sleep, as we had to go into action the next morning, but they did not let me go. Alexander Guschenkov showed me the door of a safe in the wall. He tried to open it, but it did not work. I proposed blowing up the safe’s door with a hand-grenade, but it was impossible to set it there – the door was straight and there were no hinges. We started to break the brick wall with crowbars and finally broke the safe’s door open. There were no valuables in the safe, just two or three shares of Saint-Petersburg-Moscow Railway, which each cost 100 thousand Tsar’s roubles. The shares dated back to the beginning of the century. That was the first time in my life that I saw shares, I had not even heard of them in those times. I don’t know where those shares ended up – either someone of those who were at the table took them or just threw them away.

As our forward battalions were far away and our company did not have wheeled vehicles, in the morning my soldiers found some horses with carriages, mostly coaches, and we travelled on in them. Some soldiers had the great idea of putting on tuxedos and high hats and some other funny stuff. I was laughing together with them, looking at this masquerade. Some cars bypassed us, then they stopped, and a General escorted by several Colonels from the Staff of our Tank Army emerged from them. They called me up (company commander Chernyshov was not there), scolded me and ordered me to stop the ‘masquerade’, but permitted us to use the coaches. We threw the fancy clothes away and travelled in the coaches before we reached the other battalions. It was our turn to go into battle. In a village we stopped for a break to refuel the tanks, have a meal and replace ammo in tanks. After a brief rest, during which the soldiers stocked themselves with butter, cheese and fried poultry, and we moved on forward.

I was standing behind a tank turret, while right behind me was the company’s medic ‘Brotherly Heart’. The Germans launched an artillery strike on us. A shell exploded behind our tank and the medic was wounded in his back with its splinters. No one else was hurt. I stopped the tank, we took the medic into a house and bandaged him with bandages from first-aid kits. I left a soldier behind just in case so that he could send the medic to our medical platoon and catch up with us later. Sometimes I allowed such things. Had it not been for ‘Brotherly Heart’, the splinters would have ended up in my back. I was lucky again.

We waded a shallow and narrow river, probably the Spree, and rushed into a small village, but were stopped by small arms fire from basements of houses. The soldiers pointed out targets to the tank crew, and after several shots from main guns the German fire ceased. The company walked to the edge of the village. The battalion commander arrived in the company and shouted: ‘Come on, Bessonov, forward, don’t linger!’ We mounted our tanks and continued our journey. Clashes with Germans were unceasing, we only had short breaks. We again ran into some Germans, but as soon as they saw our attacking line supported by tanks, they all threw their arms in the air. I formed up this fearsome army of 80-100 men and ordered them to lay down their weapons. These were Volkssturm – old unshaven men with grey hair, who were shouting ‘Hitler kaputt!’ The battalion’s political officer, Gerstein, arrived in the meantime, and shouted to me: ‘Do not execute them, do not execute them, Bessonov!’ As if I had been executing prisoners the whole war! I did not have a slightest thought of harming those old men – I have never been a fiend! On my command, the Germans picked up their bag packs and I sent them ‘nach Haus’ – home. I did not have time for them. The old Germans were very happy to hear the order and quickly disappeared.

In general, the battles were heavy and the Germans put up stubborn resistance. That was the only case when such a large number of soldiers surrendered. Even in this case it was only privates and recruits that surrendered, while officers and NCOs slipped away, they were afraid of us. I also saw boys of 14 or 15 years old from the Western Ukraine, dressed in German uniform. They served in anti-aircraft artillery, which was in action against the Russian, and American air force. They also served as telephone and radio operators and observers.

In early April 1945 they sent a Major to our battalion to be the deputy battalion commander for personnel. General Lelyushenko, commander of our Tank Army, sent this Major to our battalion as a punishment for some wrongdoing at the office of the head of cultural section of the Army. He did not fight the war for long with us. Once we rushed storming into a village, where Germans put up insignificant resistance, firing Panzerfaust missiles. Our tanks were waiting for the company to drive the Germans out of the houses. Again my soldiers and I were the vanguard of the battalion and the Major somehow happened to be with us. He ordered us to move forward in that village, but I told him that we had to look around, spot the enemy’s weapon emplacements and only after that we could start an assault. We entered a house with him and my men; I walked up to a window and started to look at the nearby houses. I did not like the feel of it, I don’t know why, but I ordered: ‘Quickly out of this room, go to the other room, that one!’ The Major first tried to resist, but then followed us, and then an explosion, followed by another one, shook the air. It grew quiet again. We peeped into the room that we had just left and saw that Panzerfaust rounds had destroyed the wall at which we had just stood. What rescued me? Intuition? Luck? The Major again started to hurry me with the assault, but I tried to talk him out of it, saying that first we had to fire on the house windows at least with submachine-guns. The Germans had not yet abandoned those houses. He did not believe me and decided to capture the nearest house with several soldiers, telling me that the house was empty. As soon as he walked into an open spot from behind our house, the Germans fired on him; he was wounded and lay down in a ditch, calling for us to come to his rescue. We pulled him into a safe place, bandaged him and I ordered my soldiers to carry him into our rear. The Major was lightly wounded in the buttocks. He thanked me as he said good-bye and acknowledged that he had been wrong.

After his departure we fired on the German ambush with machine-guns and kicked the Fritzes out of that village. Some of them fled, others were killed during the battle, while some were taken prisoners. Under cover from one team of soldiers, the other assault team would reach a building and toss hand-grenades in its windows. It was not an easy task and took a great deal of courage and bravery! Tanks also helped us with fire from their main guns; my soldiers pointed out targets for them. I had casualties, but I fulfilled the order. The battalion commander walked up to us. We laughed at the wound of the deputy battalion commander in his buttocks. With everyone laughing, I told the story of Major’s wound and how he groaned, being scratched in his ass and almost dying from fright. The battalion commander gave us a new mission. We were briefed and again moved forward, in front of the Brigade.

The end of the war was drawing near, but while the Berlin operation continued, we were in battle every day, breaking the enemy’s resistance and losing men and equipment in battles. Most of the population had left the houses around Berlin. Those who stayed in their houses and apartments hung white linen out of their windows, showing that they surrendered and were at the winners’ mercy. Some German civilians informed us about where German soldiers had dug in, who was a Nazi, who had tortured Russian prisoners of war or those who were sent to Germany for forced labour. All kinds of things happened.

The offensive continued successfully. Sometimes we drove forward in one column, which had the Brigade’s staff, medical vehicles and the battalion’s field kitchens in it. To be honest, I did not like such a concentration of vehicles, as it only frustrated the combat companies. We also did not need the kitchens, as we mostly fed on the German cattle and poultry. The soldiers had a great time in that respect, they cooked what they wanted. We mostly ate poultry – geese, ducks and turkeys. We ate pork more rarely. In battles we continued to guard the tanks from the Panzerfaust teams and point out targets for them. I was again ahead on three tanks with my company, while the main body of the Brigade was setting a rest place. No one would tell me what to do, no one threatened me or advised me – it was nice!

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

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

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

The events that followed were even more horrible than I could imagine. I had not seen such a thing before at the front. A German APC arrived and at first we did not pay attention to it, as they normally had a machine-gun mounted on them. But all of a sudden the APC started to shoot fireballs and flame and I realized that this was a flame-thrower – a horrible weapon that burnt people to ashes and could even burn a tank. The temperature of the flame was very high, if I am not mistaken, it was around 1,000 degrees Celsius. The APC threw flame several times. It was good that it was at first behind a house and the company’s soldiers were out of its sight. When the APC emerged from behind the house, we were extremely lucky. Before it could throw flame at the soldiers who had not yet made to follow Chernyshov’s command and at my platoon, two shots sounded from the other side of the channel, and the APC’s flame liquid container exploded, killing all of its crew. The APC was knocked out by the battalion’s artillery battery. They did a great job by not missing with the first shot, otherwise we would have been in big trouble. The enemy’s tanks fired several rounds against the other side of the channel, turned and departed from our sight. Chernyshov again gave us the ‘Forward!’ order; we all stood up and entered the town. With no enemy armour in sight it was a different story. There was no enemy infantry there. As we were passing by the spot at which the flame-thrower fired, we saw the burnt bodies of our soldiers, mere ashes. It was an awful sight, although I had seen a lot of sights in the course of the war. Luckily, there were only three to five burnt soldiers, but they died because of the stupidity of one foolish commander, following an idiotic order. Later the incident was forgotten and no one recalled it. But I still recall that battle and those soldiers burnt by the flame-thrower even 60 years later…

At first I wanted to move forward through the gardens, not in the streets, just in case, but it did not work. Every garden with a mansion was separated from the next one by a fence, a high and strong metal mesh. We had to move forward along the street, and we did not even check the houses, which were locked – so much was Chernyshov hurrying us. It was late, but it was still light. In some places we had to fire on individual targets. Some random Fritzes were still there sometimes. I have already written that the town of Ketzin was part of our combat mission, and we were supposed to meet the troops of the first Belorussian front in the town. The town was captured by practically a single company without tanks, because they were only just starting to cross the channel on the ferries that were brought up. Late in the evening of 24 April, 1945, my platoon and company established contact with cavalry reconnaissance and the tanks of the first Belorussian front. Thus, Berlin was fully encircled by Soviet troops. That was the day when I was wounded.