Today I will tell you about the combat mission of Lyudmila Pavlichenko, which could have
ended tragically. We will be forwarded to Odessa in the hot autumn of 1941, when the
red army heroically held back the enemy's onslaught in the south.
I tried to fulfill the new order of the company commander as best I could.
He set a combat mission: to destroy the enemy's machine gun, which was firing truly deadly
and accurate fire from the village of Gildendorf, not giving our people, as they say, to raise
their heads.
On the twentieth of September, the Soviet command was preparing to strike at the enemy
in the Eastern sector of the front. Our two battalions of the 54th Regiment, together
with five battalions from the 157th Infantry Division, were to assault Gildendorf.
Before that, my fellow soldiers drove the enemy out of the cemetery, located two hundred
meters from the southern end of the village. There were trees in the cemetery: five tall
maples with spreading crowns and thick trunks, who, no one knows how, survived in hot battles,
during bombing and shelling.
The difficulties associated with camouflage receded by themselves. From the book "Fights
in Finland" I knew that in the Karelian forests, Finnish snipers, "cuckoos", fired at our troops,
hiding among the branches of mighty northern trees. Why don't I use this experience?
The lieutenant approved my plan. All evening I was embroidering my new camouflage
jacket with a greenish hood and brown stains. The petty officer gave me scraps of camouflage
nets and someone's old tunic, which I cut into ribbons and small pieces.
The tattered tape was good enough to wrap the barrel of a sniper rifle. The rest, along
with maple leaves, twigs and bunches of grass, I placed on the jacket, which made it lose
its previous clear silhouette and began to resemble the robe of a goblin or swamp creature.
An hour and a half before the sun was rising, I went to the cemetery. Not poor people at
all - immigrants from Germany - lived in the village of Gildendorf. With German accuracy
they arranged not only the village, but also the churchyard not far from it: straight paths,
graves with stone tombstones, lattice fences. The trees overshadowed the eternal resting
place of the first burgomaster of Hildendorff, the venerable Wilhelm Schmidt, who died in
1899, as indicated by the inscription engraved on the marble monument.
Putting my feet on the black slab, I began to climb from there up the trunk of a mighty
maple, bent over the gravestone.
My equipment consisted of only the most necessary things: a Mosin sniper rifle, two belt filled
with cartridges with "light" bullets and armor-piercing bullets with the heads painted in black, as
I was going to not only shoot the machine-gunners, but also disable their infernal machine. I
did not take the binoculars, nor did I take the steel helmet, since my hearing became
worse after the concussion, and the helmet prevented me from perceiving faint sounds.
Resting my feet on maple branches, I comfortably arranged the rifle on another branch at about
shoulder level and looked through the eyepiece of the telescopic sight at the village.
Now the street, built up with one-story stone houses, a mill, a church, a school lay in
front of me, at a glance. In the garden surrounding a large dilapidated house, I saw a universal
German MG-34 machine gun on a tripod stand and boxes with ammunition belts laid out next
to it. The machine gun had an optical sight. So that was the secret of its accurate fire!
Well, evil fascist dogs, I'll teach you a lesson now...
At seven o'clock in the morning, the outposts were replaced. However, soldiers with rifles
did not interest me. I was waiting for the machine gunners. They appeared later. Three
Romanians appeared later. At first they were engaged in a machine gun, then they sat down
under the trees and began to eat large golden-yellow pears, which were in abundance in the garden
under the trees.
I expected to make three shots, no more. one - in the machine gun lock.
Having inserted a cartridge with a "light" bullet into the bore, I closed the bolt and
leaned against the optical sight. The target - the head of a tall soldier sitting next
to a tripod with an MG-34, was between three black lines - and, therefore, there were a
few seconds left before the shot was fired. But suddenly there was a movement in the garden.
The machine-gunners jumped up, lined up and stood at attention.
​​A minute later, officers in caps approached them. One of them looked the most interesting:
a cigar in the mouth, a brown leather tablet on its side, and a long whip in his hand.
In general, he looks haughty and decisive.
I knew the distance: about two hundred meters. The wind died down. The air temperature was
approaching twenty-five degrees Celsius. I took in sight not a soldier, but this man,
held my breath, and gently pulled the trigger.
The Romanians heard the shot. How not to hear it in the piercing silence
of the morning? But it probably took a while for them to think that a sniper was working.
This man, without even crying out, fell to one side. They fussed around him, and in vain
I managed to reload the rifle twice, and both machine gunners were also on the ground. An
armor-piercing bullet from the fourth shot hit the MG-34's bolt, incapacitating it.
The enemy came to his senses and now with might and started firing through the cemetery
from mortars and rifles. Fragments from mines and bullets whistled around me. I pressed
myself against the thick trunk of the maple, but soon realized that he was a poor defense.
Five trees is not a century-old Karelian forest, in which it is difficult to see anything in
the tops of giant pines. Pieces of hot metal flew here like a deadly swarm, knocking down
leaves, breaking thin branches. The feeling of terrible danger froze my heart, but did
not cause confusion.
It was necessary to jump immediately, although it was three meters to the ground. In order
not to break the expensive optics, I hung the "sniper" on a branch, which protruded
much lower, and rushed down, imitating my own death. I fell unsuccessfully, hitting
the right side on someone's gravestone, and I could not get up because of strong pain.
Voronin sent soldiers, and they helped me to my feet, brought me to the dugout.
My fellow soldiers were preparing for an attack on Gildendorf, and I, suffering from pain
in my right side, lay in a dugout and reflected that the book "Fights in Finland", of course,
was written the truth, but nevertheless, applying someone else's experience, it was necessary
think with your own head, analyze local circumstances. Now going to the cemetery and shooting from
a tree seemed to me a form of adventure.
At about eleven o'clock the enemy was driven out of Gildendorf, as well as from the Illichivka
state farm. The Romanians were randomly withdrawing their troops to the north, throwing the dead
and wounded, weapons, and ammunition on the battlefield. Our men began to inspect the
captured positions, found in the village garden a smashed German machine gun, two soldiers
and an officer. This was my contribution to the overall victory, and Lieutenant Voronin
admitted that I helped the second company a lot.
The company commander also visited me. The lieutenant said that the man, shot by
me, turned out to be the adjutant of the dictator Antonescu himself, Major Gheorgi Karadzha.
Some important staff papers, letters, photographs and a diary were found with him. The major
wrote about the awful morale of the Romanian army, which, near Odessa, faced fierce Russian
resistance.
The memory of the story with five maples in the cemetery near the village of Gildendorf
remained with me in the form of a silver cigarette case with skillful engraving on the lid, which
had the image of a beautiful woman in a luxurious hat with bows. Andrei Voronin presented it
to me that day as a trophy found when a Romanian major was killed. I pressed the lock button,
the cigarette case opened, and we saw thin long brown cigarettes tightly packed in it.
I offered them to the lieutenant. He refused:
- I do not smoke. Have you been smoking for a long time, Lyudmila?
- No. I learned at the front. Sometimes it helps to relieve nervous tension.
- And does it often happen? The company commander asked.
- Usually after the hunt, when the enemy is destroyed. While in ambush, I have no feelings.
I just wait and think that the rifle will fire without a miss.
- Thinking about a weapon? - the lieutenant was surprised.
- Sure. Rifles for a sniper are almost sacred...
Dear friends, that's all for today. Write your opinion: how do you think there is a
place for a woman at war? And what do you think about the idea of Ludmila climbing up
on such trees?
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