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<\/p>\n\n\tI was assigned to the 84th Tank Brigade in the second half of August 1942. I took part in the defensive fighting near the Tractor Factory.<\/p>\n
\n\tMy firing position was 100\u2013150 metres from the factory. Our main task was to prevent the Germans from breaking through to the river, as the factory stood not far from the Volga. During this fighting, I destroyed three German tanks with my T-70.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u2014 What kind of tanks were they? Large or small? T-3s or T-4s?<\/p>\n
\n\t\u2018How could I have known what it was? If it had been a heavy tank, I wouldn\u2019t have been able to penetrate it with my 45 mm gun. But those tanks did not exist yet. At the time, there were the PzKpfw III and PzKpfw IV medium tanks, whose armour had already been improved slightly and whose guns had been lengthened. So the tanks I destroyed must have been light tanks of some kind. But I never got a proper look at them! My sight had a range scale, and we always set it for the distance at which we would be firing. BR-8: an armour-piercing shell set for 800 metres. At that range, the shell\u2019s trajectory did not rise above the height of a German tank. That was what experienced tank crews taught us.\u2019<\/p>\n
\n\t\u2018This is how it was. My tank was in a trench, dug in up to the turret. The turret could rotate, and I could see everything. I felt immense satisfaction when I hit the first tank and it caught fire. I revelled in it. At that moment, I felt nothing else. But I did not destroy all three in a single day. It happened on different days. We did not keep a record of the dates. There would be one German attack, then another. The Germans attacked every day.\u2019<\/p>\n
\n\t\u2018Then one day we were ordered to support a rifle battalion that was to recapture three barracks-type buildings from the Germans. They were two-storey buildings. About 300 metres away, there was a heap of rubble where I positioned the tank. No one fired at me. There was a small bush to my right. In front of me was a building, and I was to fire at its windows. A rifle company was crawling towards it. They gave me a green flare, which meant I could open fire. A red flare meant cease fire. Then came the green flare. I aimed at the left-hand window of the building. And... bang! I fired. Black dust burst out of the window. I had thought my shell would produce something red, or perhaps a burst of flame.\u2019<\/p>\n
\n\t\u2018Ivan Ivanovich Svechkaryov, my driver-mechanic, was twelve years older than me. He was Siberian. When he saw that I had hit the target, he shouted:\u2019<\/p>\n
\n\t\u2018You hit it! You hit it! Well done!\u2019<\/p>\n
\n\tYou see, he was older than me and had already seen combat. He was thinking about his lieutenant \u2014 me \u2014 and wondering how well I could shoot. Then he saw that I had hit the target. He was delighted.<\/p>\n
\n\tSo was I. But I had to keep firing. The building had four entrances and lots of windows. So I fired along the entire ground floor. Then I elevated the gun and began firing at the first floor. When I had finished, I saw a red flare. I ceased fire, while our riflemen had already crawled up to the building, thrown a couple of grenades and begun jumping in through the windows. They were well trained by then: in a flash, they were inside the building. I could hear a firefight going on in there. Suddenly, a whole group of Germans, led by an officer, rushed towards the building. There were about 18\u201320 of them \u2014 some sort of reserve.<\/p>\n
\n\tI had to decide for myself what to do. There was no communication with my superiors. But there was hardly anything to think about! I fired a fragmentation shell straight into the group \u2014 bang! A cloud of dust rose, and the Germans immediately disappeared from view. But as soon as I saw movement, I fired again. Another cloud of dust rose, and I saw no one there after that. Once it was all over, I felt such relief: it seemed that I had successfully completed my combat mission. But that was not the end of it.<\/p>\n
\n\t <\/p>\n
\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThe T-70 of Alexander Fenya\u2019s Tank Platoon<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tWe were returning along the street when we saw a T-70 standing on the road, apparently abandoned by someone. Both the driver\u2019s and commander\u2019s hatches were closed. What was going on? If it had been knocked out, the hatches would have been open. We had to investigate. Svechkaryov was an experienced fellow. He brought our tank right up against the abandoned T-70 and climbed inside it through the lower hatch. Meanwhile, I elevated the gun and traversed the turret, keeping watch on the windows of the building opposite. Svechkaryov found no one inside the abandoned tank. So we simply attached it to our tank with towing cables and hauled it back to our lines. No one in the unit tried to find out what had happened to it or where its crew had gone. The main thing was that those buildings had been taken, and the company commander praised Svechkaryov and me for supporting our riflemen. He said, \u2018I\u2019ll put you both forward for a decoration.\u2019 But by the next morning, we were already preparing to repel an attack. Svechkaryov was cleaning the contacts while I turned the handle at his command. Then a shrapnel shell suddenly flashed, and something struck me! I collapsed, hitting my head on the armour. Svechkaryov thought I had even managed to say, \u2018I\u2019ve been killed.\u2019 I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t remember. Svechkaryov rushed over, hoisted me onto his back and carried me to a dugout. He examined me. Two wounds. He called the medical orderly, who gave me first aid and put my arm in a sling. I had two grenades tucked into the belt of my overalls here, and my pistol here. My right arm was free, and I also had signal flags here\u2026<\/p>\n \n\t The medical orderly told me to sit there and wait for the stretcher-bearers. They would come for me and take me across to the other bank of the Volga. Well, I sat there all night, but no one came for me. In the morning, I peered out of the dugout to see what was happening, but none of our men were left. I turned round, and our tanks were gone too. There were only Germans lying beside the railway tracks. The wagons were standing there, and the Germans lay with their feet towards me and their heads towards the Volga. In other words, I had ended up behind their lines. I do not know how it happened. I was lucky none of the Germans came over here; otherwise, I would have been finished. So I began looking around.<\/p>\n \n\tThe wagons were coupled together, but not all of them. I saw a place where there was a gap of about 8\u201310 metres between the wagons. A German was lying beside the wagon on the left, and across the empty gap another German lay beside the wagon on the right. What could I do? I had already put the signal flags aside. I took my pistol in one hand, while the other was supported in bandages. I climbed out and quietly made my way towards this \u2018passage\u2019. As I walked, I watched the Germans, hoping none of them would turn and see me. If they spotted me, I was done for. I was afraid of being captured because, back in 1941, I had read in a newspaper how the Germans tied our captured tank crewmen by their legs to two tanks and tore them apart\u2026<\/p>\n \n\tI went about 20\u201325 metres like that and thought the Germans might now be able to hear me. So I made a decision: without aiming, I fired my pistol in one direction\u2014bang-bang\u2014then in the other\u2014bang-bang\u2014and ran. There were four railway tracks on the other side. Our soldiers were lying beyond the last track. They saw someone in black overalls appear, fire at the Germans and then run towards them. Our men opened fire on the Germans, so neither one German nor the other could shoot at me. I reached our men unharmed. They were delighted to see me, and their junior commander even pointed out the way to the crossing. That was how I reached the boat crossing, got to the other bank of the Volga and then caught a lift to the hospital. \u2018Djanibek\u2019\u2014that was the name of the station there.<\/p>\n \n\tThat was how I ended up in hospital, while our tank brigade continued fighting.<\/p>\n \n\tAfter the war, I found Svechkaryov\u2019s award citation. It described how we had knocked out three tanks, supported the riflemen during the assault on a building, and recorded his other achievements in the fighting after I was wounded.<\/p>\n \n\tSo I was wounded at Stalingrad, while he was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd Class. The command presumed me dead, and my records were sent to the archives. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u041f\u043e\u043f\u0430\u043b \u0432 84 \u0442\u0430\u043d\u043a\u043e\u0432\u0443\u044e \u0431\u0440\u0438\u0433\u0430\u0434\u0443. \u0412\u0442\u043e\u0440\u0430\u044f \u043f\u043e\u043b\u043e\u0432\u0438\u043d\u0430 \u0430\u0432\u0433\u0443\u0441\u0442\u0430 1942 \u0433\u043e\u0434\u0430. \u0423\u0447\u0430\u0441\u0442\u0432\u043e\u0432\u0430\u043b \u0432 \u043e\u0431\u043e\u0440\u043e\u043d\u0438\u0442\u0435\u043b\u044c\u043d\u044b\u0445 \u0431\u043e\u044f\u0445 \u0443 \u0422\u0440\u0430\u043a\u0442\u043e\u0440\u043d\u043e\u0433\u043e \u0437\u0430\u0432\u043e\u0434\u0430. \u041c\u043e\u044f \u043e\u0433\u043d\u0435\u0432\u0430\u044f \u043f\u043e\u0437\u0438\u0446\u0438\u044f \u041e\u041f \u043d\u0430\u0445\u043e\u0434\u0438\u043b\u0430\u0441\u044c \u0432 100-150 \u043c\u0435\u0442\u0440\u0430\u0445…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5110,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[178],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-istorii-geroev"],"yoast_head":"\n