I Fought on the T-34. Book Three

A NEW BOOK by a leading military historian. A continuation of super-bestsellers with a total circulation of over 100,000 copies. Memories of Soviet tankmen who fought on the legendary T-34.

“Just as I managed to shout, ‘The gun is on the right!’—the shell punched through the armor. The senior lieutenant was torn to pieces, and all his blood, detached bits of his body—everything was on me! I got a small fragment in the leg from the armor, which I later managed to pull out myself; but the fragment hit the shoulder of the mechanic-driver. And the tank was still moving, and then, with one hand switching the speed lever, that one— pulled the ‘thirty-four’ out from under the fire…”

“I decided to counterattack from the flank against the German tanks that had broken through. I sat down in the gunner’s place. The distance to them was about four hundred meters, and besides, they were moving with their sides toward me. I quickly set two tanks and two self-propelled guns on fire. The gap in our defense was closed, and the situation stabilized…”

“In the battle for the village of Teploye, a direct hit jammed the leading wheel of one of the attacking ‘Tigers.’ The crew abandoned a new tank that was, in fact, fully serviceable. The corps commander gave us the task of pulling the ‘Tiger’ out to the position of our troops. We quickly formed a group of two tanks, a reconnaissance unit, sappers, and machine-gunners. At night we moved toward the ‘Tiger.’ Artillery kept firing disturbing shots at the Germans to hide the clattering of the ‘thirty-fours’ tracks. We approached the tank. The gearbox was in a low gear. We couldn’t switch it. We hooked the ‘Tiger’ with cables, but they snapped. The roar of the tank engines at full RPM woke the Germans, and they opened fire. But we had already thrown four cables onto the hooks, and with two tanks we slowly dragged the ‘Tiger’ back to our positions…”