“Panzer Destroyer: Memoirs of a Red Army Tank Commander” By Vasiliy Krysov, 2010
I don’t
usually review books like this, but as a personal tale of the WWII tank battles
from Stalingrad to Kursk to Kiev
and into Poland and Germany, it is
unequalled. Krysov was wounded four
times, had a number of T-34s or SU-85 motorized guns destroyed under him and
had so many narrow escapes it is hard to believe he survived. He used his excellent tactical skills to beat
the odds, sensing the best plans of attack or defense. His small SU-85 mobile gun group at one
point destroyed 8 Tiger tanks, the most formidable Nazi tank. Leading only two motorized guns he wrecked a
whole German regiment and their vehicles on a road, laying waste over many
kilometers. At one point his self-propelled gun rampaged
through the German rear for a few days. He
details the difficult attacks on heavily-fortified hill 197.2 near Kovel, Poland.
His aggressiveness and skills led him to overrun German positions and trenches
time and time again.
The Russian
Army at its base was highly-competent, with young and skilled tankers being
able to repair tanks quickly, sight targets on the run, help their comrades,
dig pits for the tanks and endure cold, hunger and sleeplessness, staying
steady in the heat of dangerous combat. Krysov
attempts to refrain from comments about the headquarters’ officers who drank
too much, had ‘campaign wives,’ luxurious conditions and never saw real combat -
but sometimes he can’t help himself.
Some half-assed Communist Party ‘political’ officers shared these
characteristics. Krysov was decorated
three times and supposedly drafted into the CP for a particularly heroic
action, but he never received a party card.
Decorations were related to politics and friendliness with key officers,
so he received far fewer than he should have.
The book
details a war of villages, where small-scale tank battles tell the tale. It starts in July 1941 at the Chelyabinsk Tank
School east of Stalingrad,
where Krysov learned to work T-34s and KV1 tanks, sometimes learning on a
tractor. It lasts until May 1945, when
the destruction of the 3rd Reich found Krysov’s unit in Konigsberg,
now Kaliningrad on the Baltic
Sea, after its difficult seizure.
Krysov could not keep notes on pain of arrest, so he put the stories
together through his memories, research in military archives, repeated unit reunions
with his surviving comrades and trips to the actual battlefields. He recalls the warm support for the Red Army from
peasants in Russian and Ukrainian villages - and even in Poland. He notes limited combat with Vlasovites
(Russians who joined the Wehrmacht) and Banderists (allies of Hitler in Ukraine.) He also comments on regrettable rapes in Germany, one of
which he investigated for the prosecutors.
Tactically
Krysov used zig-zag driving tactics at full speed to approach German
emplacements and occupied villages before firing his guns. The Red Army engaged in surprise night attacks
on a semi-regular basis with much success.
He had frequent duals with ‘Fritz’s’ Leopard Mark IV, Panther and Tiger
tanks using his low-slung SU-85 tank destroyer, even though his SU-85 was
outgunned by the Tigers and outclassed by the thick armor of the Panthers. There are a number of difficult river
crossings mentioned, including one where the tankers stopped-up holes in the
vehicles so water could not get in while fording a river. During combat, many Soviet soldiers died, and
Krysov details the brutal losses among his comrades, a few of which were due to
command mistakes.
The WWII
tank battles in Russia and
eastern Europe were probably the greatest the world will ever see – certainly
larger than Al Alamein or Tobruk or anything Patton was ever involved in, like
the Battle of
the Bulge. After all, the main focus of WWII in the European theater was the
Soviet Union. But this memoir is more than that. It is the human side in the field, of a tank
commander who wanted to defeat the fascists and repeatedly returned to the
Eastern Front to do just that.
Some day we
might have to follow his example.
Other
reviews on the subject of WWII below, use blog search box, upper left:
“Life and Fate” (Grossman); “The Unwomanly Face of War” (Alexievich);
“Enemy at the Gates.”
Thanks to
Bro Rod,
Red Frog
October 28,
2019
1 comment:
Love tthis
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