The soldier turned to look at his company commander. ‘I am still breathing!’
At this point Beltshikov’s crew silenced the German machine-guns. Muraviov got up and stormed towards the island shouting ‘Hurrah!’ The company followed him. Anikushkin overtook his superior. Guardsman Yuri Golovatshiov moved light-footedly with the machine-pistol, Guardsman Yermolaiev running next to him. Machine-gun fire from trenches ploughed up from heavy shells came towards them. Steering with his hands, his head stretched out, Yermolaiev crashed forward. Near Muraviov someone cried out, but once the machine-pistol men’s attack had got under way it was not to be stopped. Man to man fighting began in the trenches. One soldier tried to stop Anikushkin with a raised pistol but he hit him in the body with his machine-pistol and pulled the trigger.
Muraviov’s company took the island. The infantry had hardly dug themselves in when German shells burst over them. Thick smoke stood over the island. Suddenly the firing ceased. Some shadowy figures appeared on the other bank.
‘Company – fire!’ commanded Muraviov.
Golovatshiov lay next to Anikushkin and fired. The enemy came ever closer and threw hand grenades from a distance of about 30 metres. Nevertheless they were stopped and had to turn back.
Again the island lay under heavy artillery fire. Then bombers attacked. Metal splinters scattered like specks of earth into the river. No one seemed able to survive this inferno. But as the enemy infantry went into the attack, they were met by dense machine-pistol fire.
Once our artillery had silenced the enemy guns and our fighters covered the island from air attack, I got into radio contact with General Krivoshein. ‘Who’s in charge of the infantry?’ he asked.
‘Muraviov. Do you remember him? He always speaks slowly.’
‘Yes, I know who you mean. Before the war he was a Kolchos chairman.’
‘That’s right, Comrade General.’
‘Award him in my name the Order of the Great Fatherland War 2nd Class! He fought excellently. I will sign the order immediately and send the award by courier.’
‘Certainly, Comrade General.’
A little later an officer arrived from Krivoshein’s staff bringing the Order. I took it and crawled to the island, where I found Muraviov after a long search. He was lying in a shell crater with some of his soldiers, holding a pair of binoculars with hands stiff from the cold. Fragments of ice hung from his felt boots and from the hem of his greatcoat. His teeth were chattering.
‘Excuse me, Comrade Lieutenant-Colonel, we don’t look very smart,’ he greeted me.
‘You can’t help getting dirty in battle. The only thing that matters is that you and your company are sitting on this island in the Oder. Chotimski has praised you highly. His infantry have formed a bridgehead near Küstrin and are holding it. The gateway to Berlin is almost off its hinges. Do you realise what that means?’
‘If it wasn’t obvious to me, I would not be sitting here.’
‘On behalf of the President of the Supreme Soviet, I hand over to you for bravery and heroism the Order of the Great Fatherland War 2nd Class!’
‘I serve the Soviet Union,’ replied Muraviov in a subdued voice as I placed the decoration on his chest.
After a strong handshake I returned to Küstrin. Fighting was still going on in the streets. The enemy was firing out of windows, cellars and rooftops. His mortars took us regularly under fire. Oil tanks were burning on the river bank, turning the sky black with their smoke.
Without question, we had to take one of the Oder bridges, but how could we get through this heavy fire? Apart from this, the enemy was firing at us from the fortress with artillery and with machine-guns like needle pricks from the rear. I called my company commanders on the radio. The first to respond was Nikolai Ivanov.
‘How’s it going, Nikolai Jegorovitch?’
‘It’s building up,’ he answered. ‘We are already running out of ammunition! I am waiting for a truck with anti-tank shells. We can get neither the bridges nor the fortress with shrapnel shells.’
‘You’ll get the shells, don’t worry. Concentrate your fire on the fortress, give every crew an exact target and keep hammering at the fortress until the regiment has got forward to a bridge.’
‘Understood.’
A little later the fortress walls vanished in a cloud of smoke and brick dust. But it still took several hours until the fortress was finally silent.
Major Bortovski’s tanks of the 9th Tank Regiment and the SPGs of the 4th Company advanced towards the bridges. In the first wave of tanks were the SPGs of Mussatov, Beltshikov, Monogorov and Saiev. From time to time they stopped and long tongues of flame came from their guns. But it was much more difficult for the 19th Mechanised Brigade, as machine-gun fire kept pinning the infantry down.
The embankment at the bridge was ploughed up by shellfire. A deep anti-tank ditch barred our way. Lieutenant Beltshikov’s SPG rolled to the edge, stopped briefly, then slowly disappeared into the depths.
‘What on earth is he up to? He’ll turn over!’ cried Lieutenant-Colonel Pashitnov.
The right track had already sprung off and the SPG slid to the bottom of the anti-tank ditch. Beltshikov left his SPG and ran to another one from which to command his company.
‘He knows how to look after himself,’ asserted Lieutenant Vinogradov.
Suddenly Beltshikov raised his arms, swayed, fell in the snow, recovered and then collapsed again.
‘He seems to have had it. Look at him, he can’t get up anymore,’ Major Sacharkin said.
‘Forwards. Through the anti-tank ditch!’ I shouted to the driver.
Meanwhile Sergeant-Major Axianov, the gun loader in Beltshikov’s crew, went to his commander’s aid. He went forward by leaps and bounds up to Beltshikov, loaded the wounded man on his back and crawled back to the anti-tank ditch. As he let the wounded man flop into the ditch, he was hit by a bullet.
My SPG had already crossed over the anti-tank ditch and silenced the enemy position. Once that was done, we hurried to help the wounded men. Axianov lay on his back with his arms outspread. The bullet had hit him in the temple. Beltshikov groaned. His lower jaw was shattered. We called the medical orderlies and had him taken to hospital. The attack continued.
Then from corps came the order to hand over the fighting sector to the arriving elements of General Berzarin’s army, to go north to Königsberg and clear German troops from the area from the east bank of the Oder to the Baltic. The order was obvious, as we could not attack any further west without first destroying the enemy forces that were threatening our flank and rear near Stargard.
As dusk fell, the fighting died down. It began to snow in thick flakes. Soon a thick blanket of snow covered the blood-soaked battlefield. I ordered Lieutenant-Colonel Pashitnov and Major Sacharkin to get the regiment together and concentrate in Alt Drewitz. I myself went off to corps headquarters with Lieutenant Vinogradov. On the way I made contact with the company commanders. They had already received the order to assemble. Only Lieutenant Beltshikov’s company found itself in a difficult situation. Following the wounding of their company commander, they were practically without leadership. The SPG was intact but the radio contact to it had been lost. Vinogradov asked for it to be sent to his company. My constant escort was often jumping into dangerous situations and mastering them, so I immediately agreed to his request.
Leaving the 4th Company without a commander was unacceptable and I decided to appoint Lieutenant Mussatov as the new company commander. His calm and his ability to deal with situations coldbloodedly and to assess them soberly impressed me. Apart from that, he had completed the training course at the tank school in Ulianovsk and had belonged to the regiment from the start.