Tank Rider by Evgeni Bessonov

This is a combat soldier's story of the war and it deals primarily with platoon and company level actions. It is not great literature along the lines of Tolstoy but appears to be the experiences of a veteran of the Great Patriotic War dictated to someone over a period of time.

If you are a devotee of the Eastern Front, this book makes a good counterpoint to a number of the German histories of the war. What surprises me is that the actions he describes are quite short at his level, and although they might have been intense, there was a lot of "down time" during the actions.

It's amazing that Bessonov went  through over two years of war as a company level officer and was wounded only twice. He chronicles the stories of his comrades who were struck down by accident, or, in many cases, by accidents. This bears out my own experience that combat casualties are less than non-combat injuries and fatalities in large military operations.

I'm proving some book ecxerpts so you can get a flavor for his writing style and the nature of the war as he saw it. 

The first is from pages 144-5. Use it the next time you argue about Katyushas!

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 armour piercing 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, hut 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.' [Bessonov was wounded and still recovering...] 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.

And now some excerpts on non-combat times. (In one place in the book, he talks about how several of his peers borrowed money from him to buy cologne from the service wagons and then drank it for the buzz.)

On 7 November, 1944 the battalion commander organized a dinner for all the officers of the battalion to commemorate the 27th anniversary of the Great October Revolution.

The soldiers also received a special holiday meal, but it was all served without alcohol. For some reason we never received the daily Narkom's (named after the Defence Minister who introduced the ration —translator's note) 100 gram ration of vodka, but we found a solution —we started to make our own moonshine. Brotherly Heart, our medic, was responsible for making it in our company. The command persecuted underground moonshine manufacturing, but it was still widespread and flourishing. Moonshine made from sugar beet was strong (it could even burn), but it stank like hell so it seemed that our moonshine-making technology was far from perfect.

Battalion commander Kozienko would regularly inspect the companies and destroy the distilling equipment, but we would assemble it again and continue brewing alcohol. We would come from our training, have a half-glass of moonshine, and it would feel great, millet porridge seemed tastier. For some reason they only gave us millet meal — millet soup and millet porridge... There were heaps of potatoes of Polish owners lying in the fields, but we were forbidden to take them — the local population was sent away from the front area, but some managed to stay, while others visited every week or even every day. We secretly ate these potatoes though, but not every day. We were afraid of being punished for looting if caught, but everything worked out well.

We did not abuse the moonshine; we drank it but controlled ourselves and didn't drink too much. I could hardly stomach this drink, and my comrades even laughed at me because of this. Alexander Guschenkov, however, was a big fan of alcohol; there was nothing he liked more than drinking. The battalion commander sometimes rebuked him for this.

Kozienko had an old bastard serving as his orderly, who was always snooping around and then reporting to the battalion commander. We would normally kick him out of our house, but somehow he still knew everything. He himself also brewed moonshine — it was for the battalion commander and his deputies. Some smart guy found out where he was brewing it and when the orderly was away, he stole the whole supply of alcohol — quite a big disappointment for him and the battalion's top brass! Deputy battalion commander Burkov decided that it could only be officers from our company and right away came to our house. But we did not have the moonshine in our house —although we got to taste it a couple of days later. It is still not known who stole it. I should also mention that in October Burkov was promoted to the rank of Captain and awarded with the Order of the Red Banner. He visited all companies and celebrated the new rank and the decoration with the officers. He was very happy, as he had been Senior Lieutenant for a long time. That was one of the negative features of the Brigade's staff — not only did we not receive a lot of decorations, but it was also hard to get promoted.