Somewhere on the way to salt, our 2nd Division was lagging behind. The commander of the artpolka Chubakov was in our 1st division and ordered me to divide what happened with the retired.
It was the case of regimental scouts, but for some reason he instructed him to me, head of intelligence of the 1st Division.
Sunny day cloned in the evening. German aircraft all day bombed our units and settlements. The harmless walk to his rear in search of a dedicated division seemed very attractive to me. Scouts in the division almost did not remain, and I invited my friend on the road, also former student, Lieutenant Grishe Kurtia. They moved with him on the road to the village of Sakko and Vanzetti, which was a little west of Voroshilovka.
The village remained less than a kilometer when we saw the tanks that came out of her. While we considered, whose tanks are: ours, German? - The nearest tank has released a long machine gun. We climbed and quickly, hiding in the snow, crawled back for the hill. Then they rose to full growth and ran trot. The run began to consult, what to do if the Germans will take us away. Grisha ripped with a cube looped. I looked at him, I saw dark tracks from cubes on the buttercasters and did not disappear.
The tanks went through deep snow slowly and very carefully, for about ten minutes they were not visible on the bug. Although we taught a kilometer for a half, the threat of captivity has not yet passed: the tanks could well catch up, and we continued to worry.
We were no longer afraid of death, I was afraid.
We run past the copper from corn stems. Near her two tankers warm tea in the boiler. It turned out that it was not a copper, but a disguised tank. When they fled to the village, we did not notice it, it turned out, German planes were wrinkled in the morning, and two crew members went into the rear behind the spare parts.
- Guys, from the rear, German tanks go, - we warned tank worn on the run, but they just laughed.
I seen everything I reported to the commander of the regiment of Chubakov. He immediately put out the German tanks towards the village at the village. It passed more than an hour. I was called by the commander of the Division Gordienko.
- Well, where are your tanks? Hiba Koruzi is pinched, "he dared," he laughed at us in the presence of Chubakov.
- What kind of corona! - I was indignant. - They shot us! And where to go - I do not know!
- Take the heels of guys and go back to Sakko and Vanzetti, look for the second division and German tanks! - again ordered a compolat of Chubakov.
I had only one intelligence officer - a native aniently, my one year old. Also four soldiers gave a rifle regiment. But, having learned that it was necessary to go to intelligence, two infantrymen were silent, and the third announced that he had chicken blindness. I stuck the shutter of the machine gun, said strictly:
- Who's blind, come out! Patients too. Fast!
All three immediately recovered. Already on the road, the infantrymen became friends with us, got them into the board.
The moon covered the snow-covered road, the snow crunched loudly snow. When the kilometer passed three and passed through the hill, they noticed fires on the road. They approached closer and saw a disorderly journey of a large number of burning tanks with white crosses on the towers. Sorked ten cars! Two more tanks tempted by silent black boulders.
Putting two soldiers with automata at the road for guard, with the rest I'm a side crash to not burning tanks. Undoaded, listened. In dark tanks, silence, only in burning cars crackle fire. Knocked automatically in a baked tank. No sound. Climbing the open hatch, I send the automatic inside and give a queue. Silence again. Turning to the darkness of the hatch and stumbled upon with his hands on the dead body of the tanker. Under the arm, a flashlight hung to his breast, pressed a button, he highlighted inside the tank ... the head of the sewing machine. Such a ladderness did not indignant as surprised: walking into battle, having a sewing machine in a tight space, a sewing machine is already supercrowded! I take a gun, documents and notepad from the murdered German.
Then we read panic recordings about big losses in the notebook and how the German grief-tankers rims Russian rears, shoot carts, and then the dream: "But I want to personally beat the Russian tank!" Meanwhile, my satellites pulled out a lot of wine from the next tank, canned, gall and managed to fill all pockets so to fill the trophies that with difficulty moved. I ordered everything to lay out and strain in the snow before returning. And he thought: if we return.
Who got all these tanks? Having passed several hundred meters further along the road, we saw the stunned sheaves of corn stems, a set of shooting sleeves and deep traces from tank tracks. And then I remembered two tankers of the 178th Brigade, which boiled tea when we fled from German tanks.
So they still won our warning and managed to get into the disguised tank before the appearance of tanks shooting in us. The Germans did not pay attention to "Shop", drove by. And the heroes of the tankers missed German tanks past themselves and then hit the column: set fire to the front and closing tanks, and when the rest began to spread to the sides, destroyed them.
We were amazed then not only the result of the martial arts of one of our baked tank with a whole tank mouth of the Germans. We were divided by courage and excerpt of two of our tankers! What is to sit in a tank when you slowly pass more than a dozen enemy machines. Surely, at least one of the German tankists will come to mind to flash a suspicious shop near the road. But it cost.
And the column of German cars passed by our tank was destroyed within a few minutes. Well, by that time they arrived their comrades with spare parts. Corrected the tank, turned around and left ...
Source: P.A. Mikhin "" Artilleryrs, Stalin gave orders! "