Veel memoires van Sovjet soldaten

[Robbert Jan]

Hier een link VOL met zeer uitgebreide interviews van Sovjet soldaten uit alle verschillende onderdelen. Zeer de moeite waard om een idee te krijgen hoe het er aan het front aan toe ging.

http://english.iremember.ru/home.html

Leuke quotes;

- It is considered noteworthy that the Sherman was very well appointed on the inside. Was this true?

- It was true. These are not just words! They were beautiful! For us then this was something. As they say now, "Euro-repair"! This was some kind of European picture! In the first place, it was painted beautifully. Secondly, the seats were comfortable, covered with some kind of remarkable special artificial leather. If a tank was knocked out or damaged, then if it was left unguarded literally for just several minutes the infantry would strip out all this upholstery. It made excellent boots! Simply beautiful!

- Dmitriy Fedorovich, there were personal weapons in each Sherman that arrived in the USSR, Thompson submachine guns (also known as the Tommy gun). I read that rear area personnel stole these weapons and that few tanks arrived in units still equipped with them. What kind of weapons did you have, American or Soviet?

- Each Sherman came with two Thompson submachine guns, in caliber 11.43mm (.45 cal), a healthy cartridge indeed! But the submachine gun was worthless. We had several bad experiences with it. A few of our men who got into an argument were wearing padded jackets. It turned out that they fired at each other and the bullet buried itself in the padded jacket. So much for the worthless submachine gun. Take a German submachine gun with folding stock (MP-40 SMG by Erma -Valeri). We loved it for its compactness. The Thompson was big. You couldn't turn around in the tank holding it.

- What would you like to say about the German Tiger?

- It was an extremely heavy vehicle. The Sherman could never defeat a Tiger with a frontal shot. We had to force the Tiger to expose its flank. If we were defending and the Germans were attacking, we had a special tactic. Two Shermans were designated for each Tiger. The first Sherman fired at the track and broke it. For a brief space of time the heavy vehicle still moved forward on one track, which caused it to turn. At this moment the second Sherman shot it in the side, trying to hit the fuel cell. This is how we did it. One German tank was defeated by two of ours, therefore the victory was credited to both crews. There is a story about this entitled "Hunting With Borzois" in my book.

My friend, a nice fellow, Lyosha Kurov was killed near a place named Gorshik. He was killed due to his boyish folly. We stood in defense, everything was quiet. Lyoshka ascended a railroad embankment and went heckling the Germans exposing his naked buttocks to them. The Germans fired at him with a cannon and killed him.

A.D.: Did you ever rub shoulders with the Finns?

No. I saw them only through the gun sight. It’s true, though, that this situation happened in our battery. Our cook was a big man, the merry fellow Vania Chechurin. The kitchen rarely succeeded in dragging up to the forward positions—either the snipers would prevent them or the snow had piled up—so food carriers would set out to the positions with thermoses that contained enough food for 20. If there appeared to be a lull in the fighting action, then the kitchen came up close the positions of the battery. And so, one time the battery members lined up with mess tins. When another soldier came up to Vania, who was giving out food, Vania looked at him: “And you? Who are you? Maybe you’re a Finn?!” And he whacked him on the head with his own ladle.It turned out that this was a real Finn. The Finn was so insolent that he came to our kitchen to receive a mess-tin of hot soup. For his vigilance Vania Chechurin was awarded the medal “For Bravery.”

G.K. – What is your view of the quality of German tankers?

V.V. – Their training was very thorough. The Germans were a very serious opponent. To be honest, their equipment was also a lot better. The German tank guns had a higher muzzle velocity and much better sights, which of course had very unfortunate consequences for us. But by the end of the war, the Germans didn’t really take risks very often. This one night we were parked in a column of march, in a single file, actually, with all the motors shut off. Suddenly, several German Panther tanks rushed past us at high speed. We never understood why they didn’t just shoot up our column at point blank range, we wouldn’t have had any time to turn our guns towards them…

[Waldo h]

Leuke link, vanavond maar eens lezen.

[Gast]

Rare snuiters die russen.

[Robbert Jan]

Hier nog een link, met interviews van Sovjet piloten en grondcrew die op Amerikaanse vliegtuigen vlogen:

http://lend-lease.airforce.ru/english/index.htm

[Rob]

het was niet altijd makkelijk lees ik al

[Robbert Jan]

Ik kwam dit geweldige verhaal tegen, het is gek genoeg om waar te kunnen zijn!

At night I went outside. The weather was disgusting; it was cold, muddy and snow was on the ground. I had thrown on a fur coat; I had a Magyar (Hungarian) one. Next to our headquarters hut there was a kitchen trailer. A sentry was standing alone rapidly stomping his feet on the ground, apparently freezing. He wore a ragged fur cap; nobody cared about their uniform in winter, all wore whatever warm stuff they could get. I asked him: “Is it cold?” He answered: “Cold, nicht verstehe”. (I don’t understand – German). I was taken aback. “Come up here!” – I said. I looked at him and saw that the guy was a German with a rifle on a strap behind his back! His teeth were chattering and his face turned blue from the cold. I took his rifle away from him and ushered him into the house. All ours: orderlies, headquarters staff were sleeping side by side; some on benches, some on straw on the floor. I dressed them down and nearly punched the staff commander’s ear in. “Who is guarding us?” – I asked.

- “There is a sentry out there.”

- “What sentry? drat you! A German is guarding the headquarters!”

In short, I raised a fit. “What shall we do to the German?” – I asked. The staff commander suggested: “Let’s execute him!”

- “You capture the one for yourself first and then execute!” - I said – “Feed him, give him hot tea and give him a bed to sleep and in the morning we’ll figure out what to do.” After the battles all were dead tired and wanted to sleep. In the morning we interrogated the German. Back in school I used to learn some German, but like many others, not diligently. Just would mark time at class and go home. I wished I had known that I would need it. Somehow by combined efforts, using my scanty knowledge of German, halfway communicating with gestures we figured out that the German was a noncombatant soldier, an automotive maintenance technician. He didn’t want to fight, was hiding somewhere in the steppe; frozen, starved, in despair he came to the village and wanted to surrender. I asked him: “Hitler kaput? “ – “Kaput, kaput!” – He answered enthusiastically.

In the course of the Korsun-Shevchenko battles the brigade had captured many enemy vehicles: ‘Bussings’ and ‘MAN diesels’. Our technical quartermaster Sergiyenko had a good understanding of technique but he often struggled to repair the captured vehicles. We assigned our German technician to help him out. We dressed him in our uniform, just removed a star from the cap and shoulder straps from the greatcoat. “OK, “- I told him, “now we’ll call you Ivan!” So everybody nicknamed him ‘Ivan’. I don’t remember now what his real name was. He stayed with the battalion, worked on repairing of the captured enemy vehicles. And he went along with the battalion further. Once when we had already approached Romania I was out to inspect guards and sentries on posts. It was a normal practice for a battalion commander, a deputy battalion commander or staff officers to inspect guard posts. There had always been someone awake, who walked around on patrol. The day before, our quartermasters went to the captured enemy warehouse to take some foodstuffs and alcohol. Although the warehouses had been captured from the enemy, they were already being operated by our army; there were our guards, storekeepers, and store accountants. I was walking along the battalion encampment area and suddenly heard someone said: “Halt!” (Stop – German). There was Ivan with a rifle in hands standing near a truck. I told him: “I’ll show you ‘halt’, drat it! What are you doing here with a weapon?” I opened the cab door. The battalion foodstuff quartermaster and logistics supervisor tumbled out of the cab, both drunken, out of senses. There was a vomit in the cab; they had overdone it with wine. I slapped them on their cheeks and sent them to sleep off their drunkenness. Just imagine! They had put an armed German on guard and gotten themselves loaded up!