– My father was in the army by then, the next time I saw him was 1946. – And did your relatives manage to evacuate? I myself managed to walk 20 kilometers along country roads to the next railroad station, and rode out of the encirclement on the last freight train that had escaped the Germans. We waited for orders to begin an orderly evacuation of noncombatants out of the region, but never received it. When they did that, people started to panic…our battalion just fell apart. The commanders were fond of saying things like – “we’ll fertilize the earth with German corpses!” And the Germans – they just flanked the entire defensive position… They had an echeloned defense 30 kilometers deep, with artillery positions every 100 meters. The area around Jartsevo was held by professional troops, very well trained and equipped. Of course, later that summer I gained a more realistic perspective on the war. We all wanted to get to the front as fast as possible, worried that the war might end without us getting to fight. Everyone was really surprised at how easily we dealt with the Germans then – we could hardly have known what a terrible and bloody war awaited us all. In July we had a battle with some German agents that had infiltrated behind the frontline, and even managed to capture one of them alive. We were issued one Vickers rifle and 5 rounds for it, housed in a schoolhouse and sworn in as soldiers. Our commander was a man from the town’s militsia who had served a tour with the army before the war. The battalion received one 1.5-ton truck, which provided all of our mobility. The German bombing raids on the region were very heavy, and our battalion was tasked with guarding the two nearest railroad bridges, dealing with any German saboteurs and paratroopers, and patrolling the district. Five days after the invasion, our district created a “destroyer” battalion from Komsomol volunteers. I only managed to finish 8 grades of school before the war began. – I was borne in August of 1924 in the town of Jartsevo in the Smolensk region.
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