Dear friends, welcome to the channel the Eastern Front!
Today I want to share with you a memoir of one of the veterans from the Soviet side about
the first days of WW2.
These memoirs are interesting because they were shared by the veteran's grandson Alexander
Udikov.
And it consists of a lot of interesting details.
When I was little, my grandfather didn't tell me anything about the war.
He told me something, but without specifics.
When I became older - he described his experience in more detail.
I remember asking him if he killed Germans.
Grandfather replied that he did not know.
That he shot with aim, in order to kill.
And the result in the turmoil of the battle is not always clear.
We didn't have any war trophies at home.
Grandfather explained that he could not take something from a dead soldier, even an enemy.
Here is one of his stories about the first days of war.
"...In the direction where our regiment was moving, we did not see any of our troops.
Either they retreated along another road, or they remained surrounded in the enemy's
rear.
Here is a column of our battalion jumped out of the forest into a clearing.
There is a settlement with a church and two-storey stone houses ahead.
The village is no more than 2-3 km away, perhaps even less.
Who measured distances then…
We drove a little bit, and received a powerful strike at the column.
They stopped and began to turn the cars into the forest.
The fighters jumped off the cars and lay down on both sides of the road.
But there was nowhere for the cars to turn around here.
There are wet meadows on both sides.
As soon as the car pulls over the road, it gets stuck and begins to sink into the ground.
So several cars went out of order and caught fire.
It was in front of the district center of the Vitebsk region, the city of Senno.
Now it's hard to say how it turned out that we ran into a city where there was an enemy.
Apparently, then we had a bad intelligence.
With good intelligence, of course, this would not have happened.
The battalion commander, Major Vlasov, presumably, understood the situation a little, deployed
the battalion and led it on the offensive against the city.
At first we had no artillery, so the city was taken without artillery support.
There were no tanks either.
We, the junior commanders of the battalion management, were used as messengers.
We ran from one company to another with the orders of the battalion command.
At the time of the attack on the city of Senno, I was sent with orders to the left flank company,
now I don't remember which company it was.
They were advancing in the cemetery area.
Here in the cemetery lay our wounded fighter, with a deadly wound, but he was still breathing.
This wounded man is still before my eyes.
The first victims are remembered for a long time.
When I returned back to the battalion headquarters, ours were already on the outskirts of the
city, occupying the extreme streets up to the ravine.
The Germans poured machine-gun fire on us from the bell tower of the church and from
the windows of two-story stone houses that stood behind the ravine.
Near the house where the battalion headquarters is located, a dead scout of a walking reconnaissance
platoon was lying.
I still remember his last name.
It was Rokhnitsky, a tall blond guy.
Soon the battalion commander sent me to find the regiment commander and deliver a report.
The report indicated targets for artillery.
I found the regimental commander at the edge of the forest.
Our guns were also installed in firing positions there.
Soon they opened fire on the church and stone houses.
Our tanks also came up.
Regimental 76 mm cannons on tankettes slipped under the cover of artillery division fire
to the outskirts of the city of Senno.
Even before that, the other battalions of the regiment that came up joined the battle.
After a fierce battle, the regiment drove the Germans out of the city and drove them
several kilometers away.
We have already gone on the defensive outside the city.
The headquarters of our battalion was located in one of the suburban houses.
It became clear that the Germans had pulled up reserves - they were already pressing our
battle formations.
The fascists outflanked us and were already entering the area where the second echelons
were located.
But despite this, we stayed in the city for three days.
If my memory serves me correctly, we defended on July 7, 8 and 9.
On July 9, our rifle units held the defense along the western outskirts of the city.
Suddenly, several tanks appeared on the outskirts of the city.
The hatches of the tanks were open, there were small red flags on the engine part of
the tanks.
The battalion's chief of staff, Senior Lieutenant Vedernikov, sent me and another fighter Alperovich
to find out what kind of tanks appeared there.
Since they had red flags and open hatches, we assumed that these were our tanks and walked
without fear, almost openly, but at some distance from each other.
Alperovich walked in front, and I followed him at a distance of 12-15 meters.
There was a lonely shed on the way.
As soon as we passed it, one of the tanks fired.
The shell hit Alperovich directly, and there was nothing left of the fighter.
I got small wounds-scratches, ran behind the barn and crawled back from there.
My comrade died so unexpectedly and carelessly.
I returned to the battalion headquarters, reported what had happened, but there was
nothing to knock out the tanks with.
I don't know where the regimental guns were.
Soon after, dive bombers swooped down on the city and began bombing - flock after flock,
heavy shelling began.
Enemy tanks and machine gunners went on the offensive.
Our companies could not stand it and began to withdraw.
Gradually at first, with fights.
But when it became known that the escape routes along the road were cut off, and German motorcyclists,
tanks and machine gunners were operating in our rear, panic began.
There was nothing to say about an organized offensive.
Then we just ran back - to the east.
The road is occupied by the Germans.
We were left with bushes and a swamp on the sides of the road.
When we were running, machine gunners were fired at us from the bushes at the roadside.
Behind the machine guns lay people in Red Army uniforms.
It turns out that they were disguised German saboteurs.
They killed a lot of our Red Army soldiers and commanders.
Our battalion chief of Staff, Senior Lieutenant Vedernikov, was wounded in the leg here.
In these conditions, it was impossible to help him get out.
Everyone escaped as best they could.
Those who fled last reported to the headquarters that he, fearing to fall into the hands of
the fascists, shot himself.
Here, jumping over a ditch, the commander of the 9th rifle company, Lieutenant Pomilovsky,
dislocated his leg.
He could not get out and was captured.
Many other fighters and commanders were captured.
Among the people I know, Leonid Lukienko, who previously served with us at the academy,
Barannikov and many others.
A lot of people were killed in the meadows and swamps.
But then I didn't know about all this yet.
I learned later from our fellow soldier Sergeant Barannikov, who was also captured and returned
to his homeland after the war, to the city of Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod), and there
I met him and learned from him the details of the capture of some comrades in the regiment.
Running away, we saw our tanks and vehicles stuck in swamps or standing without fuel,
so the tankers blew them up and also retreated with us.
And in the forest at that time there was a sea of strawberries, even if you pick handfuls,
but then we were not up to berries.
After walking a few kilometers through forests and swamps, we went out on the road and there
we met the division commander, General Remizov, who met the departing units and groups of
fighters and directed them to the gathering place.
There were several officers with him.
The general's tank was standing somewhat off the road, under the trees.
And enemy planes were raging in the air, they were chasing every car, any group of soldiers,
even a single fighter.
We were accompanied all the time by one ugly-looking plane, presumably a scout, whom the Red Army
dubbed "hunchback", he fired a smoke rocket in our direction, and it was always followed
by an artillery raid.
Thus, the Germans adjusted the fire of their artillery.
This picture of retreat, or rather flight, I remembered for the rest of my life.
After all, we, the Red Army soldiers and the commanders of the personnel service were brought
up in the spirit of the offensive, were going to fight, if necessary, only on enemy territory,
and were preparing not to give the enemy an inch of their native land.
But in fact it turned out that they beat us, but they beat us hard.
It was very difficult and painful to experience and realize what was happening.
Needless to say, the Germans knew how to fight.
At that time, their military equipment was better than ours.
Their machines were lighter and more reliable than ours, and there were significantly more
of them.
No wonder our soldiers tried to acquire these weapons.
The officers' personal weapons, the Parabellum system pistol, hit further and more accurately.
Their tanks were also more advanced than our tanks of old brands, we had very few new T-34
and KV tanks.
The Germans also had good intelligence.
Saboteurs and parachutists were operating in our rear in many places.
And that meant a lot.
Along the road where we retreated, bridges either burned or were blown up.
I think it was the work of enemy saboteurs.
If they set fire and blew up their own, then it was done very untimely, because our troops
were just passing through these places.
As a result, cars had to go around, pave roads through ravines or throw cars, ammunition,
weapons and property.
After walking a few kilometers after meeting with General Remizov, we found the cars of
our regiment in the forest.
Then we drove cars for a while.
In the area of the town of Dobromysl, they took up defense.
By the way, there is an interesting video on my channel about the work of the barrage
detachments in the first days of the war.
As usual, the link will appear in the upper corner of the screen.
Night came, during which the fighters dug in and equipped themselves with shooting cells.
The line of our defense passed through an elevated area.
After dark, the commander of our battalion gathered a group of Red Army men and junior
commanders and, under the leadership of Lieutenant Grechikhin, sent them to reconnoiter towards
the enemy.
I also got into this group.
The July night is short.
Closer to dawn, we came across tanks, and we were very close to them, since the morning
was foggy and visibility was low.
German speech could be heard from the nearest tank, but there was no one near the tanks.
Then the Germans fought "culturally" - they fought during the day, and at night they rested,
slept off.
It turns out that they didn't even put up guards - at that time the Germans were self-confident
and arrogant.
We calmly returned and reported the results of the reconnaissance to the command.
Dear friends, that's all for today.
It was Tim and the Eastern Front channel.
And as usual I wish you peace and health.
See you.