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

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.