On 26 December the Fascists discovered that the Soviet troops had arrived alongside the Danube and begun an operation aimed at their annihilation. Colonel Chunikhin organized the defence of Tata using the forces of the 2nd and 3rd battalions, and placed Major Dudin in charge of it. He sent our battalion along the Danube towards Neszmely. The combrig together with the operations group took the battalion of tommy-gunners and all attached artillery and headed towards Esterg, and engaged the enemy near the town. After a fierce battle the town was captured, and the 18th Tank Corps joined with the troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front.
Just after dawn on the 26th our battalion set off on the march from Tata along a road following the Danube. The river ran majestically to our right, and on the left there were low rugged mountains dissected by ravines. It became warmer as the morning progressed: the snow that had fallen the night before melted, and damp fog covered the ground. We advanced with a great deal of caution. I led a column of tanks, followed by the combat with the Staff, a company of flak machine guns and the tank reserve. We approached Nyergesujfalu and attacked; after several rounds from the main guns and the machine guns the enemy fled to the south-west, leaving three trains with matériel, four guns and six operable vehicles at the station.
The advance continued. I sent forward a reconnaissance patrol – Lieutenant Yakovlev’s platoon. The fog became thicker. After the easy success near Nyergesujfalu Yakovlev was too relaxed, reckoning that the enemy didn’t have sufficient forces to resist in this area, and his platoon was moving forward in a compact group. However, the Germans set up an ambush of three tanks near the village of Piske, which let the patrol come right up against it and fired at point-blank range. Two tanks were immediately ablaze; the third one, firing aimlessly, managed to pull back, reversing under cover of the thick fog. I went berserk. I deployed the company and engaged the enemy in a firefight. Moving from one patch of shelter to another, we approached the enemy tanks. We managed to destroy one of them, but the other two kept on fighting, skilfully manoeuvring away from our onslaught.
The combat arrived on the scene. He lined up artillery and flak batteries as well as the reserve tanks for point-blank firing, although the enemy brought forward their artillery as well. The resultant balance of strength meant that a tedious and nasty firefight ensued. Major Grishenko reported the situation to the brigade HQ and received orders to switch to defence.
After the capture of Estergom the 170th Tank Brigade was charged with attacking westwards along the Danube, dislodging and destroying the opposing enemy and reaching the Dunaalmas–Somod line. The advanced detachments were supposed to capture the Almasfuzite station and reconnoitre from there towards Komarom. However, when setting up this task, command obviously wasn’t taking into account the terrain, the enemy’s capabilities and the weather conditions. The brigade was subsequently put under exceptionally hard circumstances, especially with regard to timing. Having quickly grasped the nature of the task the combrig ordered the 1st Tank Battalion commander to dislodge the enemy defensive screen and head towards Schutte, leading the main forces of the brigade.
The weather and the visibility had improved during the night: the German defence lines and camouflaged tanks had become discernible. Without waiting for broad daylight Grishenko deployed the battalion and attacked the enemy. Our tanks progressed slowly, from one shelter to another, firing on the run. The enemy began to withdraw. The battalion intensified the onslaught and, growing bolder, we burst into the Schutte station where we captured three trains loaded with tanks. Zampotech Captain Sergeenko and maintenance men examined them: they were damaged and faulty machines being sent by the Germans for repair.
Without stopovers we continued our advance: the enemy was hastily retreating towards Neszmely, having blown up a bridge across a small river in front of our vanguard tanks. The combat and Captain Klimov, who caught up with me, under cover of tank-fire found a ford and organized passage straight across the channel. However, when the brigade was approaching Schutte, the enemy air force came over and began to attack our column. Taking up positions without delay, our flak gunners opened fire at the enemy planes – having randomly dropped their bombs, the German aircraft withdrew without inflicting any damage.
Coming past two burnt-out tanks near Schutte, I saw a sad scene. Sergeant Spiryugov was sitting alone by the road, next to a freshly-dug grave. Awaiting the rear units of the battalion, he was drinking wine from his mug and eating baked eggs, commemorating his fallen comrades. It appeared that, as they left Tata, the tankmen had put a saucepan with eggs on the transmission. When the tank had been shot up and caught fire, the eggs had boiled.
The combrig ordered Major Grishenko to speed up and reach Neszmely as soon as possible, then attack and capture it. Without meeting any resistance, the battalion advanced quickly and in good spirits, along a bitumen road parallel to the Danube. Being confident of quick success, the combat deployed the battalion immediately with no reconnaissance or preparation, attacking Neszmely within a narrow sector. Suddenly, however, we encountered well-fortified defences: the enemy hit our battalion with a well-organized barrage from tanks and artillery and we retreated.
Colonel Chunikhin arrived on the spot. He confirmed the situation and decided to attack from the front using the 3rd Tank Battalion, and bypass Neszmely from the south with the 1st and 2nd battalions and then strike the enemy from the rear. The artillery spread out into a line, and the 3rd Battalion attacked after a short bombardment. They attacked resolutely and boldly – the usual way for Serezha Otroshenkov – but the enemy quickly cooled him down. Having lost two tanks, the battalion consolidated on the target line with great difficulty. Meanwhile, the 1st and 2nd battalions failed to bypass Neszmely from the south, and so the strike on the enemy from the rear was frustrated. All subsequent attacks on Neszmely similarly brought no better results. The number of operable tanks in the battalion was decreasing. With the arrival of darkness the brigade ceased fighting. The rear units caught up with us; people were fed with hot food, machines were refuelled and ammo restocked. Neszmely was turning out to be a very hard nut to crack, and in the winter conditions almost impossible to bypass: on the right there was the Danube, on the left barely passable mountains. We needed to break through this narrow, well-fortified bottleneck – but how?
The brigade HQ organized reconnaissance of the enemy defences and the countryside adjacent to Neszmely. All night Lieutenant Chebotarev crawled around the enemy defensive positions, probing their rear and flanks. By next morning the information that HQ had was bad: Neszmely was a well-fortified strongpoint with a developed system of engineering installations and land-mine obstacles. It was defended by up to twenty tanks, artillery and mortars. A captured prisoner also confirmed that the garrison had been ordered to hold up the Russian onslaught near Komarom and to win time before large reserves arrived: Hitler had promised them considerable assistance.
During the night Chunikhin, with all the combats, visited all the battalions that were reconnoitring the approaches to Neszmely. The results of this trip strengthened his conviction that the brigade would be incapable of dislodging the enemy with the available forces. We would have to find a way around, block off Neszmely and then carry out the main task.
German aircraft came over at dawn, and then enemy tanks and infantry attacked. The brigade repulsed the enemy onslaught. Intense fighting lasted under these difficult conditions for several hours. The main blow fell on the 3rd Tank Battalion, though they managed to beat off this attack. Stern orders came in via radio and communication officers from the comcor, in which he expressed his dissatisfaction with the slow advance of the brigade, blaming the combrig for a lack of resolve. Meanwhile, Chunikhin decided to engage the enemy near Neszmely with the force of the 3rd Battalion, and for the main force of the brigade to bypass the town by going across the mountains, continuing the implementation of the main objective.
Diverting the enemy attention, the 3rd Battalion intensified the pressure. At the same time our battalion and then Jumin’s pulled out of the engagement. Tanks moved quickly on frozen ground powdered by snow. The tankmen were glancing up at the clear sky with apprehension, fearing the reappearance of the enemy aircraft – fortunately none came over. Having come up against Hill 331 we stopped to assess the angle of the slopes (they were no shallower than 30 degrees). Grishenko, Klimov, Klaustin, Sergienko and I gathered at the head of the column. We selected the shallowest rise and sent my tank forward ahead of the rest, having taken the crew out of it. A seasoned driver, Senior Sergeant Stulov raced the tank forwards, wanting to tackle the slope in one go, but halfway up the rise his speed dropped and then the tank stopped. In spite of Stulov’s skill and zeal, the track began to skid jerkily, then spun round rapidly without any grip, and finally the tank rolled downhill, smashing everything in its path.
Sergienko suggested we fasten studs onto the tracks. The crews and the maintenance guys quickly screwed them on, and Stulov resumed his climb, this time going a bit more to the right. Now the tank moved more confidently, although just before reaching the top it stopped again and rolled down even faster, barely staying upright at the bottom. Stulov was mobbed by officers and drivers, all offering advice. Everyone was arguing, trying to prove some point or other, making suggestions – but time was ticking by. The action near Neszmely was continuing – dusk was approaching, and we had to hurry up.
Together with the combat and the driver we walked up to the top of the hill and looked around. I noticed a barely visible path leading to the summit that was used by goats and sheep: this meant it was the shallowest part of the slope. When I suggested we drive the tank up the path the combat agreed. Stulov walked back down and set off on a third assault of this low but nasty obstacle. This time things went well and there was cheerful shouting from the tankmen.
‘What shall we do next?’ the combat asked.
‘We have to think it over. Other tanks will barely be able to climb up this track.’
‘Think, think, Suvorov,’ Grishenko said jokingly.
I recalled how we had managed to recover a tank stuck in mud up to its turret, and ordered Technician-Lieutenant Razmadze: ‘Take off the ropes and make a long tow rope.’
One end of the rope was hooked to the tow bar of Stulov’s tank, while the other was held by two maintenance guys. When a tank was approaching the top and starting to struggle, they would hook the rope onto its tow bar. Then Stulov would get into action and help the tank climb up to the top at this critical point. The method worked! Soon all the tanks were on the top. Hiding in the woods and bushes and using gullies and ravines, we bypassed Neszmely and by evening had reached Hill 294, from where Dunaalmas was discernible through the fading light.
Following our battalion, the 2nd Tank Battalion also bypassed Neszmely. It came into the open to the left of us and was ordered to advance towards Samod and capture Almasfuzite using its vanguard force. We were ordered to capture Dunaalmas. But first we would have to descend from the hill. Grishenko and I explored the entire local area; the combat preferred the only field road available, which was normally used by carts. It was very narrow, and halfway down it was bounded by an overgrown wood on the right and a deep ravine on the left. I weighed this all up and objected that the tanks would fall off the cliff if there was any slight miscalculation. ‘Do it your own way,’ Grishenko said, waving his hand dismissively.
We searched for a better route down the hill until late in the evening. Under moonlight we finally found a steep but clear descent directly facing Dunaalmas. The crews got out. Stulov was to go down first. Initially he managed to keep it slow using brakes, but then the machine began to swerve and was close to turning over. Releasing the brakes, Stulov regained control and rolled down the hill, managing to stop the machine at the bottom. A huge oak, against which the machine had come to rest, saved him from turning upside down. Having recovered from the shock, Stulov recommended that the drivers find a safer direction and let the machines roll down without applying brakes. And that was how it was done. Rolling down, a tank would reach a crazy speed – flying down in a cloud of sparks coming from under the tracks. It was a dramatic and scary sight! At last the final tank joined the column – everything had gone well.
During the descent the 2nd Battalion commander, Khasan Jumin, arrived on the scene. The method of rolling downhill alarmed him. He turned to his second-in-command, Koltunov, and said: ‘No, Zhenya, we won’t be coming down this way. We’re going to find something better than this.’ Major Grishenko advised him to have a look at the field road situated about 2 kilometres away which we had decided not to use.
Jumin returned to his battalion. The tanks stood in a column, the crews nearby were waiting for further instruction. Jumin shared his thoughts with the zampolit, and Shlykov supported him – a different way down from the hills had to be found. The combat came up to Lieutenant Talyzin’s tank and ordered: ‘Start up, we’re going to go and look for a descent and way out to Samod.’
‘Permission to speak,’ Talyzin answered, ‘Chashegorov is conveying the situation to the Brigade HQ using the tank radio.’
‘All right, you stay here.’ He went up to Skachkov’s tank standing nearby and took off to reconnoitre the way off the hill.
They searched around the location for quite some time, but found nothing appropriate, and by dawn decided to try to descend down the same field road. Having taken the crews off, Jumin sat on the armour to the right of the driver’s hatch and directed the machine movements. Halfway down the descent the tank slipped off the road. The left track fell into the ravine, the tank dropped and then turned upside down, killing the combat. His body was recovered from under the tank with a great deal of effort and was subsequently buried. Senior Lieutenant Koltunov took charge of the battalion and led it from then on.
Meanwhile, Major Grishenko and his deputies made it down the hill. The tanks now stretched into column once more. The major decided to give the men a rest: they ate dry rations watching the lights of Dunaalmas in the distance. Taking advantage of the lull in activity, I picked up the battalion’s ‘foster child’, Nikolka, and headed off to a nearby village. We travelled light: I had two trophy pistols hanging on my belt – a Walter and Parabellum – and Nikolka had a tommy-gun with him. It was quiet in the village, and then a light flashed ahead of us and we heard the sound of dogs barking.
‘Looks like there are no Germans in the village,’ Nikolka whispered.
‘We’ll see.’
We carefully walked up to a house where a light was shining in the window. A young woman appeared on the doorstep. ‘Are there Germans in the village?’ I asked in Russian and immediately understood the uselessness of my question. Having heard me speak Russian and seeing the Russian uniforms, the Magyar woman was scared, beginning to tremble, and waved her hands as if trying to get rid of a delusion; she tried to say something but only managed to mumble.
I signalled the woman to make no noise, and pushed her back into the house, shutting the door. We listened attentively – but it remained quiet, and we headed back. Having discovered our absence the combat had been alarmed. Seeing us return, Grishenko pounced on me angrily: ‘Where the hell have you been? You must be the biggest idiot and a crazy man to play fast and loose this way. Are you sick of your own life?’ I stood silently – what could I say in answer to that? Zampolit Klimov reprimanded me as well.
Having calmed down a little, the combat asked: ‘How’re things over there?’
‘Quiet. Seems there are no Germans in the village.’
‘Let’s proceed, then. You lead the battalion.’
I led the tanks up to the house where I had scared the owner so badly. Lieutenant Zorya’s platoon crossed the road and came up to the Danube where it flowed under a railway bridge. We regrouped the tanks, giving the exhausted crews a rest. The combat lodged in the southern outskirts in a cellar amidst vegetable gardens. Zampolit Klimov came over to my company. I was glad to see him around: the political commissar enjoyed a great deal of respect in the battalion. He always kept things simple, making himself available, and he was always exacting and fair. Klimov praised me for my ‘sensible and initiatory actions on bypassing Neszmely’, but reprimanded me for the childish prank foraying into the village. The zampolit checked on the outposts and as he left he recommended that we should set up ambushes in the western and eastern sectors of the village.
At dawn Lieutenant Zorya was the first to discover the presence of the enemy in Dunaalmas. While crossing a high road he was shot at from a machine gun and he barely managed to escape with his life. Men in the village and in the company were startled; chaotic shooting broke out. It was hard to know where there were enemies and where there were friends, but it was clear that there would be no ‘peaceful coexistence’. The streets, sidewalks and houses were all under fire. Every step, every short run was mortally dangerous. It was completely incomprehensible how Nikolka and I – and particularly the tanks – had managed to enter the village so freely before.
In the morning Major Grishenko confirmed the situation. It was not too encouraging. There was kind of a diarchy in Dunaalmas: the Germans were in the western and eastern parts of the town, and our battalion was in the centre. Receiving an update on the situation, Colonel Chunikhin ordered us to conduct reconnaissance and dislodge the enemy from the village. In the battalion HQ Grishenko lamented, not without irony: ‘Well, Bryukhov, you’ve led the battalion directly into the enemy’s lair – into a mouse-trap. Now can you figure out how to get out of it?’
I was perplexed myself: how could the Germans – such seasoned fighters – display this kind of heedlessness and negligence and have not noticed our tanks, allowing them to enter their muster area? The answer arrived soon enough: Captain Klaustin organized reconnaissance and they captured a prisoner in the western part of the village. The prisoner informed us that yesterday they had received a report from Neszmely that the Russians had been stopped, and that they were making no headway and incurring heavy losses. A large tank force was reported assembling near Komarom and that was why they’d slept peacefully in Dunaalmas and hadn’t expected Soviet tanks to pay them a visit. The buzz of engines and rumbling of tracks had been taken as the advance of friendly tanks to the starting line for the decisive offensive. That was definitely a rare and fortunate stroke of luck for us.
While the commanders discussed tactics, clarifying the situation and deciding how to destroy the enemy, tommy-gunners, followed by tankmen-bezloshadniks57 from the reserve, on their own initiative, mischievously made their way from one house to another, identifying the positions of enemy tanks, guns and vehicles more precisely. They shot at unsuspecting Fascists and came back with stories about their activities to laughter and cheers of encouragement from the rest of the men. One of the company commanders, Lieutenant Voronin, could not resist this either. He sneaked quietly deep into one of the enemy positions with two tommy-gunners, where he found a tank and an armoured vehicle with infantry and then made his way back through vegetable gardens. Arming themselves with an anti-tank rifle and hand grenades, he returned to the same place, with the tommy-gunners covering him, and blew up the tank from close range and pounded the armoured vehicle with grenades. Frantic shooting broke out in the enemy camp, but the gallant officer and his tommy-gunners made it safely back to the battalion position.
The comsorg58 of the tommy-gunners’ battalion, Lieutenant Sokolov, also went off to destroy a German tank with hand grenades and Molotov cocktails – and also succeeded. The Germans were very alarmed and didn’t feel comfortable – they redoubled their vigilance, but undertook no active counter-attack. The situation was making us perplexed and apprehensive.
Upon entering Neszmely with the 1st Tank Battalion the comcor then specified the objective for the brigade. To carry it out, Colonel Chunikhin left a defending force, consisting of a tank platoon and a battery of the 1000th Anti-Tank Regiment, in the eastern sector of Neszmely in order to prevent the enemy crossing the Danube in the areas of Schutte and Mocha. On 30 December he set out on the march towards Dunaalmas with the rest of the brigade force combined with the 1438th SPG Regiment.
At dawn the 2nd Tank Battalion, together with a battery of SU-85s (85mm SPGs) descended from the mountains and turned south-west, destroying small enemy groups along the way. Panfilov’s tanks came up against Hill 294; they deployed immediately, attacking and dislodging the enemy infantry, and quickly captured the hill. Without a break the tankmen of the company then attempted to sever the Dunaalmas–Tata road, but encountered too much resistance and pulled back, reconsoli-dating their position on Hill 294 and targeting fire on the high road. After dark Senior Lieutenant Koltunov led Talyzin’s platoon back to the road and there prepared an ambush. The battalion HQ, meanwhile, stationed itself on the forest edge. The battalion command quartered in the only hut, and the combat’s tank was stationed by the entrance to the hut. The 3rd Tank Battalion, together with the battery of SU-85s, worked with the infantry of the 80th Rifle Division to capture Samod and set up defensive lines on the western slopes of Hill 235. The brigade HQ stationed itself in Samod. During all this activity the covering force in the eastern outskirts kept repulsing attacks from small enemy groups throughout the day.
Colonel Chunikhin decided to mop up the western part of Dunaalmas and capture a key road junction and the Almasfuzite station. This would let the brigade control the main roads from Komarno to Budapest and Tata and strip the enemy of its logistical routes and reduce space for manoeuvring. In the late evening under cover of darkness the battalion went on the attack. Advancing alongside the Danube, through vegetable and fruit gardens, our tank battalion began to drive the enemy backwards and dislodge them from the village. The Germans took fright, and dozens of flares soared up into the air: their pale light was highlighting the silhouettes of our tanks, enabling the enemy artillery to fire at us. The battle became fiercer and fiercer. The enemy concentrated their main efforts in an action along the high road. The tanks of Lieutenant Zorya’s platoon advanced in echelon, firing on the run at gun-flashes and silhouettes. Several houses caught fire ahead of them – the flames illuminated people running around and tanks advancing from behind the houses. The enemy resistance was getting stiffer.
The settlement, stretched along the Danube, was preventing the battalion from using the main advantages of armour – destructive power and manoeuvrability. The battle turned into a tank-against-tank, tank-against-anti-tank-gun and tank-against-panzerfaust-men action. When Junior Lieutenant Polyakov’s tank (who had already managed to set ablaze an enemy tank and destroy two anti-tank guns) was burnt by a panzerfaust gunner, Lieutenant Zorya took the lead. By that time he wasn’t a novice any more but a seasoned front-liner who had learned how to act courageously, confidently and discreetly. Tommy-gunners shot the panzerfaust gunner and continued the attack to the side and a little ahead of the tanks, letting them fire along the high road. Zorya finished off the anti-tank guns and began to wipe out the enemy infantry, blazing a path for the tommy-gunners.
The platoon now straddled more than a kilometre of the road and was beginning to enter the western outskirts of Dunaalmas when a shell from a German tank hit the platoon commander’s vehicle directly on the front armour. Smoke began to pour from the tank and then it caught fire after hits from two more shells. The driver, Senior Sergeant Ivanov, and the radio-operator, machine-gunner Dudin, were killed. The platoon commander, the gunlayer and the gunloader pulled themselves out of the tank and crawled back via the roadside ditch. Lieutenant Zorya was lightly wounded, but refused to be sent to the medical battalion, and stayed with the company. A third tank, commanded by Junior Lieutenant Butov, found some cover and kept firing from there. A platoon of tommy-gunners pulled back and dropped flat in front of the tank. Advancing along the bank of the Danube, Lieutenant Bikmulin’s platoon became stuck in an endless array of buildings situated between a railway embankment and the sandbank of the river. Having lost its way in this strange labyrinth, it was brought to a halt under enemy fire. Lieutenant Markov’s platoon had more space for manoeuvring: making its way through vegetable gardens it successfully advanced towards the western part of the village. A platoon of tommy-gunners led by Junior Lieutenant Cherkasov worked together with Markov’s platoon, but then they encountered stiff enemy resistance, stopped and were now engaged in a vicious firefight. The Dunaalmas attack was getting bogged down.
The combrig watched the action personally, but had no opportunity to influence its outcome. There were no reserves available: all forces of the battalion had been thrown into action. He ordered me to consolidate on the target line; I said goodbye to Grishenko and Klimov and headed to the 2nd Tank Battalion. The firing started to abate a little.
The 2nd Battalion was advancing along the Tata–Komarom road towards the Almasfuzite station. The offensive within this sector initially went quite well. The tankmen approached a fork in the road and commenced a barrage of intense gun and machine-gun fire, attempting to overwhelm the enemy psychologically. Lieutenant Talyzin’s platoon started to move down the road. The commander spotted a gun-flash over the road fork itself and pointed the target out for the gunlayer. Seasoned and fast, Sergeant Arutyunyan quickly aimed the gun and hit the target with an armour-piercing round. A blinding flash erupted, followed by huge flames, setting the enemy tank on fire. A hut nearby was set ablaze from this fire too.
The Germans were dashing about at the well-illuminated road junction, trying to turn a gun around. Lieutenant Talyzin turned off the high road and led his platoon towards their left flank, while Lieutenant Panfilov was encircling the junction on the right. The enemy managed to organize defences all around their position and offered stubborn resistance. Junior Lieutenant Devyatkin’s tank managed to get right to the road junction and engage the enemy artillery, but in this unequal duel the tank was shot up by the enemy guns and stopped, with smoke billowing out. The gallant commander was killed, and the crew leapt out and took cover in a nearby road ditch. The crewmen had started crawling back under enemy fire, when the driver, who was at the back of the gloomy ‘procession’, glanced back – the tank was not on fire. Overcoming his fear, he turned back, crawled back inside the tank, started the engine and engaged reverse gear. The darkness protected this brave man. When he returned to his comrades, three shell holes were found in the turret and the hull of the tank. The reason that it hadn’t caught fire was only because it had almost run out of fuel and ammunition. Overall, however, the attack had failed, and the battalion was ordered to retreat to the start line and to consolidate there.
On 30 December the 18th Tank Corps was withdrawn into the reserve of the 3rd Ukrainian Front commander. By the end of the day the 110th and the 181st tank brigades as well as the 32nd Motorized Rifle Division had mustered in the area of Bicske, Man and Jambek. The commander of our 170th Tank Brigade was ordered to hand the occupied positions over to the 217th Rifle Regiment of the 80th Rifle Division, stationed in Jambek. On the 31st the brigade handed the defences over and after dark began to move to the new muster point. The 2nd Tank Battalion was the first to take off, with the 3rd following behind together with a tommy-gun battalion. Staying on the previous line our battalion was covering the brigade’s withdrawal. At this point an order suddenly arrived: to return, dislodge the enemy from Dunaalmas and hold the captured line together with the 80th Rifle Division.
This was the way that the year 1944 came to an end. Between 22 and 31 December the brigade advanced 130 kilometres fighting the enemy, captured forty settlements, destroyed thirty-seven enemy tanks and assault guns, seventy-seven guns and mortars, and killed a significant number of enemy soldiers, as well as taking 980 of them prisoner. Over the same period of time the brigade had lost thirty-eight tanks and lost 200 men killed and wounded.