Евгений Бессонов - Tank Rider - Into the Reich with the Red Army

So, I got infuriated after the execution warning. I ordered the squad leaders to get the soldiers up to attack – I was also in the line. The soldiers did not get up – they lay on the ground, no one wanted to die. I also did not want to die, I was just 21 years old, but I had received an order, I could not just wait for the enemy to leave the village. I jumped up from the ground under heavy fire from the enemy and shouted the command: ‘Get up! For the Motherland, for Stalin! Follow me, attack, forward!’ Just a few men got up, it was mostly squad leaders, the rest remained on the ground; fear chained them to the ground. I ran a few metres forward and noticed that it was just several men in the attacking line. I had to come back, run along the line of soldiers and get them up from the ground by force, literally pulling them up from the ground by their waist belts. This was all under the enemy’s machine-gun fire. My orderly ran behind me and shouted to me: ‘Comrade Lieutenant, get down! Get down, comrade Lieutenant, or they’ll kill you!’ I just ran forward, getting the soldiers up. All of a sudden I noticed that wheat ears in front of me were falling off their stems, as if they were cut down by scissors. They were cut by machine-gun fire that the Germans were aiming at me. I had not seen such concentrated fire before. I got in a terrible rage, forgot that I could be killed and started to kick the lying soldiers with my feet and the handle of my entrenching tool, getting them to move. Eventually, everything ended well for my soldiers and me – I was not even wounded, I got the soldiers up and the platoon ran down from the hill into a depression at the outskirts of Bobrka. At the same time Petr Shakulo’s and Gavrilov’s platoons assaulted the enemy. The Germans fled, leaving a Panther tank behind – apparently, it was out of fuel. When we ran up to the tank, it was still warm from the working engine. It took me a long time to come to my senses after that assault, I sat on the ground behind a house and thought of nothing. They called for me, but I did not answer. It was a miracle that the Germans did not kill my orderly and me as we ran along the line of soldiers, getting the soldiers up.

When everyone calmed down and we came to our senses, I heard laughter, jokes, we started to recall the recent engagement. In order to relax we all took a shot of vodka. There were a lot of jokers in the war, we called them hohmach (a Russian slang word for comedian – translator’s comment) . They started to joke about me: ‘Bessonov, why did you run along the front, not forward, during the attack?’ Another hohmach answered: ‘Lads, he was so scared that he forgot the direction of the attack.’ The third one: ‘No, he drew German fire on himself, to make it easier for the Slavs (this is what we called soldiers on the front) to attack the Fritzes.’ This was all accompanied by the roar of comrades. ‘He is a real hohmach , he knows how to deceive the Fritzes!’ Those big lads thought it was funny, they laughed like horses, and did not have the slightest idea why I had run along the front, not forward. I still get scared when I recall that incident, but that time I was really lucky that I remained safe and sound. I never forgot that town of Bobrka.

The soldiers did not hold it against me that I got them to attack by force. On the contrary, they turned everything into a joke, and they were happy that they survived. It seems that this episode stayed in my memory because of its uniqueness. I never again had to go through anything like that in the rest of my battle experience. On the whole the soldiers were brave and followed orders without questioning no matter how hard it was for them. I had faith in their ability and I knew that I could fulfil orders with them. They saw me in the attacking line and participating in the deadly battle. They saw that I did not hide behind their backs and this is why they trusted me. I never doubted their stoicism, did not humiliate their self-esteem and treated everyone equally. Some soldiers showed extreme courage, for example, Poddubny, Savkin, Chulkin and others. These brave men were my support. I took heed of their useful advice in battle, and as a rule I tried to fulfil their requests and shared everything that I had with them, mostly food. So did they. I never left wounded on the battlefield and I knew that if I were wounded, they would not leave me. Our problem was that with our fast advance on tanks we did not always have time to bury the dead, and when we buried them, we did not always mark that place. It was only after the end of an operation, when we were in reserve that we defined more precisely who was killed and where, but even then it was only approximate. That was the misfortune of the tank riders and tank crews when fighting far behind enemy lines. We sometimes carried the lightly wounded with us on tanks, they were taken care of by medics or sanitary officers; heavily wounded were left in villages for the villagers to take care of them. In general, it was the battalion and company clerks’ job to keep a tally of the dead and wounded.

We did not enjoy the rest for long; a ‘Forward!’ order came, as our tanks caught up with us. That horrible day, 18 July, 1944, the day that I would remember for my whole life, was drawing to an end. One must acknowledge that the Germans set up a good covering force on that spot, skilfully used the terrain and acted very competently in that battle. The road, as I have already written, first went up to the top of the hill, and then went sharply downwards with a right turn. To the right and to the left of the road were steep hillsides, we had to jump down from them when attacking. At the same time, from my point of view, the German covering force was small – two or three Panthers and Tigers, and up to one company of infantry. To compensate for that, they had a lot of MG34 machine-guns, snipers as well as an 81 mm mortar battery. The Germans were well prepared for defence, skilfully placed their weapons and set their tanks in ambush. We, a column of tanks, advanced at full throttle, without advanced point, without any reconnaissance. An encounter battle is a very complicated type of combat, and one must know how to command it. We were lucky to have such minor casualties both in our company and in platoon. We failed to find one soldier – Babaev, a native of Baku. We searched the entire hillside, checked the houses, but he was nowhere to be found. It was a pity – he was a good soldier.

All night long we continued our advance towards Lvov. We encountered small groups of the enemy, but none of them could compare with the covering force the Fritzes had at Bobrka. At dawn of 19 July we stopped for a rest – we really needed it, especially the tank drivers, as after the hard night they would fall asleep right in their tanks, on their seats. We, the tank riders, could have a nap on the tank’s armour during the march, although the tank was not a car and it did not have real shock absorbers. Any suspension consisted of special kernels (cylinders) that slightly softened the tank’s movement on uneven roads.

We lay in wheat fields, our tanks were camouflaged in ravines. We had a snack with what God had in store for us, washed ourselves and started to put ourselves in order. Officers, who were older than me, started shaving. It was quiet and calm, the sun was shining, the sky was blue, not a single cloud in the sky. How much beauty is around and what a great happiness it is to be alive!

An incident took place during that break that I remember very well. Lieutenant Alexander Guschenkov, machine-gun platoon leader from our company, was shaving. Lieutenant Petr Malyutin came up to him to shave after Guschenkov was done. Guschenkov had a German Parabellum pistol. It was quite a rare piece in our army, the officers did not like it as it was quite complicated, but it did fit comfortably in one’s hand.