Monday, October 28, 2019

Fighting Fascism


“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

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