Penal Soldiers, Scouts, Infantry: Trench Truth of the Great Patriotic War

A new book by the bestselling authors of “The Mortal Field” and “Commander of a Penalty Company”! Terrible truth about the Great Patriotic War. The war through the eyes of frontline soldiers—ordinary infantrymen, scouts, artillerymen, and penalty-men.

“Something unites the heroes of this book: they were all at the very epicenter of the war, at its sharp edge. Now they are already over eighty. They don’t need to show off. They told me the truth—the very “trench truth” that the higher officials didn’t particularly like for decades when general’s memoirs were in fashion, memoirs that didn’t condescend to ‘details’: how thousands of soldiers died in frontal attacks, where the men rested in winter, what they ate and what they thought. By endlessly repeating the words ‘heroism, courage, self-sacrifice,’ you can level the destinies of all veterans to a single template. Those are the right words, but frontline soldiers don’t like them. They gave their Motherland everything they could. Each has his own destiny—usually a very complicated one. They recall the horrors of war with absolute candor, without self-censorship and omissions, without embellishment. You will hear their living voices in this book…”,