On January 1, 1943, Vasily Grossman was recalled to Moscow after reporting for Red Star in Stalingrad since September 1942. In his diary he describes the sadness that suddenly befell him on New Year’s Eve. While everyone around him was celebrating, Grossman thought of a devastated battalion that he believed had been forgotten: “On this holiday, I recalled the battalion that had crossed over to Gorokhov to divert the blow to itself. It was destroyed to the last man. Who will remember the battalion on this holiday? No one is remembering those who had crossed the river that foul October night.”109 Grossman spoke with sailors from the Volga flotilla during his work as a war correspondent in Stalingrad; from them he is likely to have heard about the battalion’s fate. In June and July 1943 the Moscow historians interviewed forty-six members of the flotilla.110Many mentioned the doomed battalion, which met its end while attempting to storm a village held by the Germans north of Stalingrad on the western bank of the Volga. Some of the sailors had ferried the soldiers to the other side of the river; others had watched helplessly from the eastern bank as each wave of the assault faltered in a barrage of enemy fire. The sailors seemed deeply stirred by what they witnessed, and most struck a sober tone.
Much of the testimony from soldiers interviewed after February 2, 1943, had passed through the prism of Soviet victory. In the case of the sailors from the Volga flotilla, the focus lay on a failed operation, though quite a few sought to wrest meaning from the event—including Grossman, who attributed to it an objective that had never been intended. The battalion was part of the 300th Rifle Division. Supplied with reinforcements from Bashkiria, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, the division had been awaiting deployment since mid-October.111 On October 27 General Yeryomenko ordered the division to send a fortified battalion across the Volga to retake the village of Latoshinka from the 16th Panzer Division.112 From there it was to push south toward Rynok and assist Colonel Sergei Gorokhov’s 124th Rifle Brigade.113 The 1,200-man contingent had been backed against the Volga in hedgehog formation since being cut off from the rest of the 62nd Army when the Germans took the Tractor factory.114 The second part of the mission was to take advantage of the first lull in the Wehrmacht’s drive to eliminate the remaining Soviet positions since October 14. Yeryomenko’s daring operation embodied the aggressive spirit that came to dominate Soviet military thinking under Stalin’s sway.115 The November 1 report of the Soviet military staff described the maneuver succinctly: “The reinforced battalion of the 300th Rifle Division entered combat at 4:00 A.M. to occupy the Latoshinka district.” On the same day the Wehrmacht reported that “The attempt of several Soviet battalions to cross the Volga to the north of Stalingrad failed completely. A large number of Russian swift boats were drowned, the bulk of the Russian forces was destroyed or taken prisoner.”116 On November 1 the military council of the Stalingrad Front sent a telegraph to Moscow informing the Soviet high command that the enemy had positioned powerful infantry and armored vehicles in Latoshinka, threatening the undermanned and underequipped Soviet battalion. Unable to contact the unit’s commander, the military council decided to withdraw the battalion to the eastern bank under the cloak of night. After incurring considerable losses, it had fulfilled its purpose of “drawing enemy forces.”117 On November 4 Latoshinka appeared again in a Soviet military staff report—“The battalion of the 300th Rifle Division, fighting, had fallen back behind the railroad and continued combat in the Niskovodnaya embarkation area”—before being expunged from the annals of the Red Army.118
Latoshinka had been in German hands since August 23. A column of the 16th Panzer Division commanded by General Hans Hube crossed the Don on August 23 and by the following afternoon had reached the Volga, forty miles farther east. This enabled the creation of the northern cordon that Gurtyev’s 308th Rifle Division tried to breach in September. A history of the German division describes the moment the panzers arrived at the river’s “preeminent western bank”:
“Quiet and majestic, the broad, black current carried the barges upriver; beyond it, the Asian steppe stretched infinitely in every direction; the faces of the men showed pride, elation, and astonishment. [ . . . ] The men entrenched themselves in the outlying villages of Dachi and Latoshinka tucked among the vineyards. After weeks of fighting in the treeless steppe, they hoped for a few days of rest in this luscious magical garden full of walnut trees, oaks, sweet chestnuts, potatoes, tomatoes, and wine.”
But this idyll did not last long.
“Within a few days the region north of Stalingrad lay in ruin and the fighting had become relentless.”119
The chronicle goes on to portray the Soviet landing at the end of October. In contrast to Russian historical sources, it emphasizes the superior numbers of the Soviet force:
On the night of October 30, the Russians tried again to get a foothold in Latoshinka. Already in the early evening, the men of Stehlke’s combat group were roused by a commotion on the other side of the Volga. At midnight the gunboats and tugs began to near the shore. Gerke’s armored group opened fire on the Volga train station. Three boats, carrying fifty Russians each, sank; others were damaged and turned around. Three boats managed to land at Latoshinka, on the northeastern edge and in the south. The troops clung to the shore despite machine gun and artillery fire, pushed through to Latoshinka and attacked. Lieutenant Wippermann (16th Antiaircraft Tank Unit) and his troop held out despite superior enemy attacks and managed to inflict casualties on the opponent. Sixty Russians shifted their line of attack southward toward Rynok. Under fire from the 2nd Combat Engineers 16, the group was destroyed except for some small pockets, and the command collapsed.
The northern enemy group fought its way to the company command post of the 3rd Combat Engineers 16. But Senior Lieutenant Knoerzer and his company held fast. During a heavy exchange of fire, the division prepared a systematic counterattack to destroy the enemy troops who had landed. When the initiative started, the Russians came out with all guns blazing. But it was no use. At the company command post, fifty-six Russians put up their hands; by 1:00 P.M. thirty-six more prisoners had been captured.
In the meantime, the Russians in the north landed with reinforcements and more powerful ordnance. Crying out “Hurrah!,” they attacked to the south, but over the day nine tanks pushed them back to Latoshinka’s northern edge.
In the next days, the remaining invaders were killed or captured, the attacks being fended off from Rynok. On the evenings of November 2 and 3, several landing attempts with larger ships were thwarted. A new purge rooted out the last nests of resistance. The brave combat group under the skillful leadership of Major Strehlke, far inferior in number to the enemy, had taken command of the situation: four hundred men of the 1049th Rifle Regiment of the 300th Division from Bashkiria were bagged. Lieutenant Gerke received the Knight’s Cross for bravely defending his men.120
Looking at the German and Soviet accounts side by side, we can see why the landing failed. Contrary to Yeryomenko’s expectations, the Soviet assault did not come as a surprise: several attempts to land in the preceding weeks ensured that the soldiers of the 16th Panzer Division were on guard. Another factor was the lack of coordination among the Soviet troops. In particular, the battalion received no artillery support as it tried to build a bridgehead. Ordered on October 31 by the high command of the Stalingrad Front to help the soldiers of the 300th Rifle Division who had landed on the western bank, the chief of staff of the 66th Army asked why his staff had not heard about the landing. Two days earlier, he explained, the 66th Army and the Volga flotilla had also tried to advance to Colonel Gorokhov from the north.121 The sailors’ stories also detail the disastrous decision by the commander of the 300th Rifle Division, Colonel Ivan Afonin, to send wave after wave of ships loaded with soldiers into German fire; anyone who resisted was threatened with summary execution. Afonin likely feared that he would be reprimanded for cowardice if he acted otherwise. Yet the commanders involved in the operation displayed a tenacity which suggested that they had internalized Stalin’s “not one step back” command. Interestingly, the issue of valor in combat had an ethnic component: the mostly Russian sailors of the Volga flotilla criticized the non-Russian soldiers of the 300th Rifle Division for their poor fighting.
On November 9 General Yeryomenko drafted a report for Stalin in which he accounted for the failure of the commanding officers and divisional commander responsible for the operation. (He attributed it to their lack of experience.) In the report Yeryomenko noted that only 169 of the battalion’s original 910 soldiers and commanders remained, and he enumerated the loss of equipment in detail. But he also stressed the benefits of the landing operation: “The unit fulfilled the task of drawing away the forces from the Rynok area. The enemy was forced to counteract our landed troops by pulling tanks, artillery, and infantry from the area of Rynok and Spartakovka.”122 In his memoir Yeryomenko devoted just a short paragraph to the events at Latoshinka, repeating the explanation he provided to Stalin.123 General Chuikov never mentioned the episode; nor did the leading Soviet historian of the battle, Alexander Samsonov.
In his memoir, Isaak Kobylyansky, a former artilleryman in the 300th Rifle Division, described the first attack on Latoshinka. From his position on the east bank, he heard sounds of fighting erupt from the village, and then radio contact was lost. In the evening a soldier who had swum back across the river told of the battalion’s sad demise. Kobylyansky was supposed to participate in the second landing attempt, but his boat was incapacitated by German mortar, probably saving his life. “The Latoshinka battalion met a tragic fate,” he concludes. “Nearly all of the nine hundred men were taken prisoner, killed, or wounded.”124
On November 23 the Soviets retook Latoshinka as part of a large offensive. Two days later Captain Pyotr Zayonchkovsky arrived in the destroyed village. His mission was to record the war crimes committed by the Germans. In the enemy positions he found bodies of Red Army soldiers that had been “brutally tortured,” presumably under interrogation. (His detailed impressions can be found on page 391.) Several months later representatives of the Extraordinary State Commission for Ascertaining and Investigating Crimes Perpetrated by the German-Fascist Invaders questioned the surviving residents of Latoshinka. They learned that the soldiers of the 16th Panzer Division, after taking the idyllic village, had “set up a love nest in a hole, kidnapped all the pretty girls, and held them there at gunpoint.” All the young women in the village were raped.125
THE SPEAKERS (in the order they appear)
Yuri Valerievich Lyubimov—Senior lieutenant, navigation officer for a detachment of armored cutters, communications officer for the Northern Group of the Volga Military Flotilla
Yakov Vasilievich Nebolsin—Senior lieutenant, flagship artilleryman, brigade of river ships, Volga Military Flotilla
Sergei Ignatievich Barbotko—Senior lieutenant, commander of armored cutter no. 41
Vasily Mikhailovich Zaginaylo—Deputy commander of the gunboat Chapayev
Pyotr Nikolayevich Oleynik—Petty officer 1st class, deputy commander of armored cutter no. 13
Semyon Alexeyevich Solodchenko—Petty officer 1st class, chief helmsman of armored cutter no. 11
Armored boat of the Volga Military Flotilla loaded with troops before a landing, October 1942. Photographer: A. Sofyin
Ivan Kuzmich Reshetnyak—Petty officer 1st class, signals officer of armored cutter no. 34
Ivan Alexandrovich Kuznetsov—Lieutenant captain, commander of the gunboat Usyskin126
Yuri Valerievich Lyubimov (Senior lieutenant, navigation officer for a detachment of armored cutters, communications officer for Northern Group, Volga Military Flotilla): The Latoshinka operation was organized and led by Captain Fyodorov, chief of staff of the Volga Military Flotilla, and Colonel Afonin, commander of the 300th Rifle Division. The landing force was made up of soldiers from the 300th Rifle Division, who were brought in by armored cutter with intensive artillery support from warships of the [flotilla’s] Northern Group. The purpose of the operation was to take Latoshinka and link up with Gorokhov’s127 attacking forces, thus improving the situation for soviet forces at this section of the front. The plan was to have two armored cutters go from Akhtuba to the area south of Latoshinka and land a group of men from the 300th Rifle Division. Meanwhile another two cutters were to leave Shadrinsky Bay to land forces on the northern edge of Latoshinka.128 Both of the first landing groups were meant to have reinforcements brought in on tugboats while the operation was under way. But things went somewhat differently than planned.
One of the armored cutters from the Akhtuba group was having engine trouble, so the other one took two landing parties (about ninety men). The enemy spotted this boat the moment it left Akhtuba. Heavy mortar and machine-gun fire left one man dead and about twenty wounded. They were forced to go back to Akhtuba. But despite that setback, it was important because it drew enemy fire away from the other landing group (from Shadrinsky Bay), which was able to proceed and land unnoticed. They landed without incident and occupied the area from the riverbank to the rail line this side of Latoshinka. Reinforcements were brought in to support the first wave. After the wounded were taken off the boat, the Akhtuba group went back in and made a landing in the area to the north of Latoshinka. In total we landed about a battalion’s worth of men from the 300th Rifle Division. The boat from Akhtuba released a barrage of Katyusha (M-13) rockets before landing its troops. But because of poor leadership in the landing party (the battalion lost its commander), the troops broke up into several small groups and lost contact with one another. When the Germans discovered the landing force, they sent tanks in to confront this broken-up, leaderless group and crush it. The landing force didn’t offer any kind of organized resistance, to say nothing of offensive operations.
Yakov Vasilievich Nebolsin (Senior lieutenant, flagship artilleryman, brigade of river cutters, Volga Military Flotilla): By the end of October the 300th Rifle Division came to defend the east bank of the Volga from Osadnaya Balka129 to Srednye-Pogromnoye130 and started giving artillery support to the 124th Rifle Brigade. On the night of November 1–2, units from the battalion completed a tactical landing at the village of Latoshinka. There were two companies from the 300th Division and one company from the Volga Military Flotilla. By the time they landed, the entire command staff was dead. Their boat went first and was sunk, and all of the battalion commanders died. Leadership on the ground was not established, and the whole landing party was pushed to the northern edge of Latoshinka, where they were rendered ineffective.
Sergei Ignatievich Barbotko (Senior lieutenant, commander of armored cutter no. 41): On October 30 or 31 there was a landing in the area of Latoshinka and Vinovka. The landing operation, in my opinion, was not well planned. There was a gap between the first landing group and the second. The command staff for the landing was on a ferry that sank before reaching the shore. A tugboat carrying artillery and reinforcements arrived very late, which gave the Germans time to regroup. Afonin, the commander of the 300th Rifle Division, boasted that he had 160 field guns to support us with, but none of them fired a single shot during the operation. AC-41 and AC-14 each fired a single volley of rockets. The operation was a failure. The Germans brought in tanks and artillery—they were shooting point-blank at the landing forces and the boats.
Vasily Mikhailovich Zaginaylo (Deputy commander of the gunboat Chapayev): The landing party was made up of soldiers from the 300th Rifle Division (Colonel Afonin). The troops landed without any artillery preparation. The landing itself was successful. But instead of having continuous support for the assault, they set a limit on artillery shells. The landing forces had to fight with grenades, without artillery support. The fascists brought in six tanks and artillery, all of which were firing directly at our men. We weren’t in communication with the landing party. We didn’t know what to shoot at. Captain Lysenko went with AC-23 to better support the operation and establish communication with the landing party. An incendiary shell hit the boat on its way to Latoshinka. Lysenko was seriously wounded and died soon after.
Captain Fyodorov131 was directing the operation from my observation point. He ordered us to fire on the northern part of Latoshinka with timefused shells. I let off about forty shells and ceased firing.
Pyotr Nikolayevich Oleynik (Petty officer 1st class, deputy commander of armored cutter no. 13): On October 30 we spent all day at Shadrinsky Bay. Well camouflaged. At night we took on about seventy men with weapons and ammunition (we’re rated for nineteen). We got to the opposite shore at half past twelve without drawing much attention. But we ended up two or three hundred meters farther downstream than planned, right under the enemy’s nose. Just as the troops were disembarking, we started taking heavy enemy fire. But since the enemy’s main firing points were on high ground, and we weren’t directly in their line of fire, the shells were all landing astern. But there was a gun firing straight at us from a promontory on our port side. German submachine gunners crept up close and fired at us in the dark.
The landing force, which consisted mostly of Kazakhs,132 was moving very slowly because they were poorly trained and afraid. We had to force them off the boat. Our sailors unloaded their ammunition. Private Mikhaylov threw nearly all of the boxes onto the bank. It was all unloaded in a few minutes.
When we started heading back we were being shot at by every kind of weapon: mortars, machine guns, cannons, submachine guns. After leaving under enemy fire, we arrived safely at Shadrinsky Bay. We were well camouflaged there during the day. Enemy aircraft were looking but couldn’t to find us.
AC-23 (Lieutenant Bytko) was on the south side carrying submachine gunners, but they were unable to land. The cutter took a lot of hits, took losses.
Semyon Alexeyevich Solodchenko (Petty officer 1st class, chief helmsman of armored cutter no. 11): On October 29 AC-11 and AC-13 went to Shadrinsky Bay and were put at the disposal of the 300th Rifle Division. We’d been told we were taking a battalion-strength landing party to Latoshinka. There were two tugboats in addition to the armored cutters. Moroz was in charge of the operation. We went slowly because we had eighty people on board. When they started disembarking, we started taking fire. But the landing went quickly, and we were finished after ten minutes. We got out of there fast, while firing. When we got back we were ordered to make a second run. This time we encountered heavy fire, which we returned. Nine men from the landing party were wounded during our second run. We brought them back. When we got back we learned that the tugboat had unloaded its soldiers but couldn’t unload the weaponry. The second tugboat, which was carrying the command staff, was sunk before it could make a landing. The next night only AC-13 was in the operation.
Pyotr Nikolayevich Oleynik (Petty officer 1st class, deputy commander of armored cutter no. 13): The next day we took some submachine gunners that hadn’t been taken on AC-23—sixty-eight soldiers and a communications officer from the 300th Rifle Division, who was supposed to gather information and establish communications between the landing party and the division. It was the middle of the night, but the moon made it bright out—we cursed about this and then left for the west bank. The soldiers didn’t know where they were going or why. They asked us, but all we knew was the landing site. It was a complete mess. And when we’d finished dropping them off and went back we were instructed to “transfer the landing party,” even though we’d completed the operation long ago. The submachine gunners were under enemy fire for about two hours, taking cover behind a wrecked river ferry. The engine wasn’t throttled down right away. We were getting shot at, but the shells and mortars were hitting astern. Lieutenant Vashchenko had them muffle the engine. The Germans quit firing soon after. Apparently they’d gone off the scent. The troops landed, the communications officers were waiting for them, and we brought the wounded on board. We took thirty-six men. One of them was a wounded politruk who was part of the first landing. He said that a lot of the landing force got killed, and some had shamefully surrendered.
Our divisional commissar Zhurovko133 and Seaman Larin walked the riverbank to check on the wounded who wanted to get on the boat. On several occasions they discovered malingers and deserters who had wrapped bandages around their arms or legs to make it look like they were wounded. We brought some of the wounded, and some were brought to us. They came with weapons and were all signed for. They started the engine. Again the enemy started shelling us heavily. We went back to Shadrinsky Bay at full speed.
Yuri Valerievich Lyubimov (Senior lieutenant, navigation officer for a detachment of armored cutters, communications officer for Northern Group, Volga Military Flotilla): I think the main reason for the landing operation’s failure was the absence of clear leadership. Captain Fyodorov—who organized the operation—dropped by to give us his “directives” and then left. He didn’t show up again, apparently hoping that everything would work out under the leadership of the commander of the 300th Rifle Division. But the rifle divisional commander was not prepared for this kind of operation. During the operation he often gave the most ridiculous orders, and he’d always back them up with the threat of shooting you on the spot. During the day on November 1, for instance, he gave orders for a cutter to take a communications officer to the landing zone, even though it was perfectly obvious that they couldn’t go there, that the Germans would shoot them, that they wouldn’t make it halfway across the river. And that’s exactly what transpired. On his orders, AC-23 was on its way to the landing zone when it was hit in the middle of the river and sunk before reaching the shore.
Semyon Alexeyevich Solodchenko (Petty officer 1st class, chief helmsman of armored cutter no. 11): At 4:00 A.M. we got an order to take two communications officers to the west bank and to clarify the situation around Latoshinka. We were met with heavy fire as we approached. They were shooting at us with machine guns, submachine guns, cannons, mortars. One of the communications officers said this was probably not a good place to land. “Let’s back off,” he said, “and try upriver.” We took direct fire from there too. We moved even closer to shore. But the communications officer wouldn’t go. On the third time we came right up to the bank, but the officer refused to get off.
After this refusal we turned around and headed back.
During this operation we got a lot of holes from shells, mortars, and armor-piercing rounds. When we got back to report the situation to the rifle division’s HQ, they didn’t believe it and blamed everything on the communications officer. At that time AC-23 set down at Shadrinsky Bay. They wanted to send us on the operation, but there wasn’t any more fuel. They sent AC-23. Deputy Commander Zhuravkov was on board. As the boat approached the shore, the Germans unleashed a torrent of fire. (We were watching.)
They reversed and turned back, all while returning fire. Soon after that we saw that the boat was listing, but it made it to the east bank and ran aground. A half dozen men were wounded. Seaman Kazakov was killed, the chief helmsman, Vasiliev, died quickly from his wounds, and politruk Zhurakov was wounded and had to be taken to the hospital by force. He ran away from there to get back to his unit. (They wrote about this in the papers.)
Pyotr Nikolayevich Oleynik (Petty officer 1st class, deputy commander of armored cutter no. 13): On the third day AC-11 and AC-13 (Lieutenant Tseytlin was in command of AC-13; now he commands a detachment of two cutters) received the order to pick up the landing force. As we approached the west bank, between thirteen and fifteen tanks appeared. All hell broke loose. It was dark, and we were going in blind. There was such heavy fire when we arrived that there was no way we could get close. The detachment commander ordered us to turn back. We couldn’t turn around because our boat, AC-13, had run aground, and AC-11 was right behind. We’d ended up on a sandbar. But we couldn’t afford any delays. We took a big hit to the aft machine-gun turret. That was our first breach from a shell. We’d had plenty of bullet holes before that. The shelling damaged our steering. The enemy was thirty meters away. AC-11 was also damaged. But everyone stayed calm. Our commander, Lieutenant Vashchenko, ordered me, as chief helmsman, to move to the secondary helm. But that wasn’t working either because the transmission was out. From the outside it appeared that the boat was on fire. The bullets rained down. I told the commander that we’d lost steering. Loza, the chief engineer, overheard me and gave the “full reverse.” The boat shook, jerked back, and broke away from the bank. AC-11 had gotten out just a bit earlier.
Semyon Alexeyevich Solodchenko (Petty officer 1st class, chief helmsman of armored cutter no. 11): When we got to the boat and had a look, we found that it had been breached three times by shells and three times by armor-piercing projectiles, and there were a lot of bullet holes from machine-gun fire.
AC-13 also returned and came alongside us. Then this lieutenant colonel from the 300th Rifle Division came over and shouted: “Why aren’t you carrying out your orders?” We were running low on fuel. Moroz answered, saying that he “couldn’t get out.” The lieutenant colonel held a Mauser in his hand as he yelled: “I will shoot you.” Then Moroz gave the order to depart. The boats left. The lieutenant colonel walked along the riverbank with his Mauser. Moroz decided to leave AC-11 at Shadrinksy bay and take AC-13 to Akhtuba.
Sergei Ignatievich Barbotko (Senior lieutenant, commander of armored cutter no. 41): We lost AC-34 the next morning. Lysenko, the glorious and courageous Northern Group commander, was on board, and he died a hero’s death. The circumstances of his death are as follows: that day Colonel Afonin said that what remained of the landing force should be informed that they were being pulled out. AC-34 and AC-381 left to pick up the remaining troops. Lysenko tried to explain that the landing party wasn’t there and that the boats would be going for no reason. Then Afonin accused Lysenko of cowardice. Not wanting to betray the uniform of a naval officer, Lysenko went out on AC-34 himself. A shell hit and destroyed the steering chain. Without rudder control, the boat ran aground 100–120 meters away from the enemy. The Germans fired incendiary rounds directly at them. AC-41, which was providing cover, fired six volleys, throwing ninety-six shells onto the enemy’s firing positions. They took out a six-barreled mortar (a Vanyusha)134 and a number of emplaced guns.
Nevertheless, the enemy tanks kept firing on the cutter. The troops taken prisoner during the landing operation had given the Germans the positions of our armored cutters. The next day German aircraft launched a raid on those positions, where the cutters, ammunition, fuel, and the gunboat Usyskin were all located. One dive-bomber attacked AC-41. Several bombs exploded fifteen to twenty meters away. Three men were killed (a radio operator and two gunners). Such were the losses we sustained during the period of combat operations at Stalingrad. The German artillery fire was very inaccurate, which is why it didn’t cause any damage. The mortar fire was more accurate. AC-74, for example, was set on fire by German mortars while it was approaching the bank.
Yuri Valerievich Lyubimov (Senior lieutenant, navigation officer for a detachment of armored cutters, communications officer for Northern Group, Volga Military Flotilla): A small number of soldiers managed to escape and break through to Gorokhov’s brigade, which also hadn’t started offensive actions in support of the landing. Individual groups from the landing party fought steadfastly against the enemy.
The fight lasted through November 1 and 2. During the landing operation, boats from the Northern Group were at the ready to provide artillery support for the troops. They were waiting for a signal flare. But there wasn’t any flare, so they didn’t open fire that night. In the morning, when we saw German reinforcements on their way to Latoshinka, we fired at them with Katyushas from the armored cutters and from the guns on the gunboats. The 300th Rifle Division also provided artillery support, not that night, but during the day, when the landing parties were on the defensive.
Those troops weren’t really trained (they were made up mostly of national minorities, people who couldn’t handle their weapons and lacked discipline).
[ . . . ] Captain Tsybulsky, chief of staff of the 1st Brigade, came to the Northern Group HQ on November 2. He ordered two armored cutters to go to the landing area at 10:00 P.M. to pick up whatever remained of the landing party, since there was no purpose to their continued presence there. At 12:00 A.M. two armored cutters left Shadrinsky Bay: AC-34 (Lieutenant Glomazdin) and AC-387 (Lieutenant Lukin). The divisional commander, Captain Lysenko, and the detachment commander, Lieutenant Moroz, were both on board AC-34. The boats were caught mid-river by German spotlights, and the enemy immediately opened fire. They concentrated all their firepower on the boats: not only artillery, machine guns, and mortars, but also tanks. They were all firing directly at them. Besides those commanders I already mentioned, and their crews, each boat had five sailors with automatic rifles. There wasn’t any way to suppress the enemy fire. Although the cutters did get support from the gunboats of the Northern Group and from the 300th Rifle Division’s artillery regiment, none of that had the required effect because they were shooting without making adjustments, based only on the Germans’ muzzle flashes.
The cutters couldn’t go right up to the shore. They couldn’t get closer than fifteen meters, so they were forced to turn back. On the way AC-34 lost control because of a damaged steering chain and ran aground. After seeing this the enemy intensified his fire. The cutter was under direct fire from a close distance. The second cutter (AC-387) tried to pull the first one off the bank, but without success. It was stuck. Because of the heavy enemy fire, nearly everyone on board was either killed or wounded. Captain Lysenko—wounded and bleeding (he’d been hit in both thighs)—told AC-387 to stay put, even while the enemy barrage grew more and more intense. The commander and part of the crew of AC-387 were on board AC-34 trying to rescue those who were hemorrhaging most severely. Detachment commander Moroz was badly wounded by an incendiary round that was burning him alive. The commander of AC-34 was also badly wounded. They were bleeding to death, but there was no one to bandage them and nothing to bandage them with. Lieutenant Moroz dressed his own wounds using a telephone wire. The other end was still connected to the circuit. While their commander and some of the crew were on board AC-34, the rest of AC-387’s crew started the motor, backed out, and left, abandoning their commander and comrades to their fate. At around 4:00 A.M. on November 3, Tsybulsky ordered me to take a motorboat to our dying comrades on AC-34, take the wounded and the survivors and get them to shore. I was accompanied by politruk Lemeshko135 and Lieutenant Peryshkin (commander of the 2nd Detachment of Armored Cutters).136 The shelling was relentless. When we reached the stricken cutter, we discovered an awful scene of death and destruction. Nearly everyone on board was either dead or wounded, there were pools of blood. Incendiary shells had left some of them covered in blue flames, they were burning alive. Lysenko and Moroz were still alive, but they’d lost a lot of blood. We took them and some of the other wounded onto our boat and gave them first aid. Instead of the recommended six there were fourteen people on our motorboat. We kept getting caught on the riverbed as we moved toward the west bank under constant fire. We promised the ones we left behind that we’d help them soon, that we’d either come back ourselves or send someone else. While we were transferring the wounded from the cutter to our boat, I got hit by three shell fragments in my left arm and leg.
Those comrades who were left behind on AC-34 never got that help. Only the following night did three sailors make it to the cutter in a dinghy. Over the next few nights the dinghy returned several times. They managed to rescue the radio operator Reshetnyak, who was still alive and who had taken sensitive documents and the more valuable instruments and brought them to shore. [ . . . ]
The heroic Reshetnyak was the only survivor from AC-34. He spent the day of November 3 in the radio room and, despite the devastating enemy fire and repeated aerial bombardments, conducted himself in the most heroic manner. He continued to maintain radio communication with his command post, there among the dead bodies in that scene of total destruction. Reshetnyak was nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but was awarded the Order of Lenin. Seamen Belyayev and Zayats, who were the ones who took a dinghy to the wrecked cutter, were also decorated: the first got the Order of the Red Banner, and the second the Medal for Valor. Captain Lysenko was taken to a dugout at Shadrinsky Bay, where he died an hour later, apparently from loss of blood. Moroz died in a hospital two weeks later.
Yakov Vasilievich Nebolsin (Senior lieutenant, flagship artilleryman, brigade of river cutters, Volga Military Flotilla): While approaching the site from Shadrinsky Bay, AC-34 ran aground and was shelled at close range from a battery at Latoshinka. Captain Lysenko, the AC divisional commander, and Lieutenant Moroz, the AC detachment commander, were both on board. The entire crew, including the divisional and detachment commanders, were wounded, and some were killed. All except for the radio operator Reshetnyak. When the motorboat came to remove the crew from the cutter, Captain Lysenko, who had been critically wounded by a thermite shell, told them “not one of us will be taken away, we’re going to fight to the death.” When he lost consciousness Captain Lysenko was brought to the 300th Division’s medical battalion, where he died of his wounds seven hours later.
Ivan Kuzmich Reshetnyak (Petty officer 1st class, signals officer of armored cutter no. 34): During the landing operation at Latoshinka on November 3, 1942, our armored cutter was ordered to scout out the shore and see what the landing parties were doing. AC-34 and AC-379 took part in this operation. On board AC-34 were detachment commander Moroz and Captain Lysenko. Captain Tsybulsky, chief of staff of the 1st Brigade of River Ships, had also arrived at the reconnaissance site. He had his own radio and operator. We were told to maintain contact with this radio, which I did throughout the operation.
At midnight we left Shadrinsky Bay and set a course for the riverbank, which was under enemy control. As we approached the shore, the enemy artillery opened fire. Lieutenant Glomozdin was in command of our cutter. He was demanding and very brave. He never backed down from a mission. No amount of artillery fire was going to make him go back on his decision. Glomozdin decided to land at another location. As we were approaching the bank, an incendiary shell struck the conning tower, which was where the divisional and detachment commanders were located. Volkov, the helmsman, and Tropanov, the signaler, were also there. That shell wounded Captain Lysenko, Lieutenant Moroz, and Lieutenant Glomozdin. It also knocked out our steering. We lost control of the cutter and got stuck in the sand. I was in constant radio contact with Tsybulsky, but when we went aground, the detachment commander ordered me to tell brigade command that we’d gone aground and needed assistance to evacuate the wounded. That message was transmitted to the brigade chief of staff. At the same time I sent a message to AC-379 (formerly AC-44): “Come help pull AC-34 from sandbar and take her to Shadrinsky Bay.”
AC-379 received the message and got started on their orders. They tried to tow AC-34, but the boat was so stuck that the steel cable they were using snapped in two. They tried a second cable, but that one also broke. On their third attempt to pull the cutter out of the sand, AC-379 had a mechanical failure. I was instructed by Captain Lysenko to inform the brigade chief of staff about AC-379’s mechanical problems. We got a reply saying that a motorboat had been sent for the wounded. Once its engine was back in order, AC-379 came alongside AC-34, inviting their crew to come aboard. But the crew resolved to stay with the ship. Petty Officer Mukhin had taken command [ . . . ]
The motorboat left after taking some of the wounded. AC-379 also left after they fixed their engine. The crew of AC-34 stayed at their posts. There were also two soldiers and a sergeant from the reconnaissance group. The next shell killed both soldiers and the sergeant.
We kept trying to get ourselves off the sandbank. German spotlights were searching for our boat. Eventually they managed to find out where we were. After that we began taking heavy fire. Soviet U-2s, which were attacking enemy searchlight installations, had reduced the accuracy of the German artillery.
There were ten of us still alive on the cutter (out of thirteen). We got down into the water to try to push off, but it didn’t work. Comrade Mukhin—a petty officer 1st class and secretary of the detachment Komsomol organization—took command after Krasavin. He ordered everyone back onto the boat. Then I got in touch with chief of staff Tsybulsky, who had me contact AC-12 and AC-36. They were to come to our assistance. I established communication with them. Those cutters set off, but they were twelve to fifteen kilometers away, but toward daybreak they were subjected to heavy shelling by the enemy. They were ordered to withdraw. Before dawn Mukhin gathered the engineering crew and told them to stay down there until nightfall. Then they would be able get things ready so we could get underway. With help, we could get back to base. The sailors all supported this decision.
I was in the tower, still in contact with Tsybulsky, who sent us a message telling us not to lose heart. There’s an exact record of his message in the radio logbook, but I don’t know where that is.
We weren’t sure why, but from dawn, from about 6:00 A.M. until 1:00 P.M., there was very little enemy fire (there was fog at around ten o’clock). At 12:30 P.M. on November 4 the enemy started to zero in on the cutter. At 1:00 P.M. they began to inflict severe damage. The Germans had four 76mm guns. We were taking direct hits. Two or three shells were landing every minute. At 1:30 P.M. a shell hit the engine room below the waterline. We were badly breached, and the housing of the right engine was damaged.
Petty Officer Mukhin gave orders for the breach to be sealed. When that proved impossible, the crew moved to the aft machine-gun turret. There were about eight men in there. At 2:30 P.M. a shell hit the tower and exploded inside. Seaman Volkov and Petty Officer Svergunov were wounded. Another NCO whose name I can’t remember was seriously wounded, and Seaman Vetrov and Petty Officer Shevyrda were both killed. There was a large breach in the tower and water was starting to come in. Petty Officer Mukhin, the helmsman Volkhov, a senior seaman, and a petty officer from engineering decided that, since the situation appeared hopeless, they would try to swim to our side of the river. They got out onto the top deck, grabbed some life preservers, and got ready to jump ship. The radio room hadn’t been hit, so I asked if they wanted to come in. None of them accepted my invitation except Volkhov the helmsman, who was still on deck. The others jumped overboard. A German Messerschmitt was flying overhead when he noticed people on deck, went into a dive, and started strafing the ship and the swimmers. Volkov got hit for a second time. Then he jumped overboard. The plane came back around and shot again at the sailors in the water. I never saw my comrades again. They were all killed.
The bridge was destroyed in this attack, and the antenna was damaged. The cutter had no communications. But I was determined to remain until my last breath. The enemy continued this intensive artillery fire until 3.30 P.M. They must have figured that the cutter was completely destroyed, so they stopped firing. But when the smoke cleared they could see it was still there, and they sent four planes to finish us off with bombs. After twelve passes the German planes had dropped a dozen bombs, and we were being shot at from the planes and from the ground. Six or seven bombs hit their target. One exploded above the crew’s quarters, another to starboard opposite the fuel tank, a third in the engine room, one on the deck and another in the radio room. But there wasn’t any serious damage. The most affected areas were the crew’s quarters, the fuel tank, and the galley. At 5:30 P.M. they fired fifty shells but hit nothing because of poor aim.
At 6:00 P.M. the Germans stopped firing. When it got dark I went out on deck. First I went down to the engine room and yelled: “Is anyone alive?” No answer. There were two wounded men in the machine-gun turret. Svergunov and Komarov were badly wounded. I pulled them out of the turret. They were soaked and shivering from the cold. I dragged them to the radio room where I wrapped Komarov in a sheepskin coat. I tore up a sheet to dress their wounds. We started talking about what to do next. After looking at the situation, we decided to wait for help from the other cutters. I was on deck until 9:00 P.M. watching the water, waiting for the Germans to show up. Our cutter was 200–250 meters from the German-occupied riverbank. I had three grenades, a submachine gun, and a revolver. I gave the submachine gun to Seaman Komarov and asked him to open fire if the Germans showed up.
Apart from that, I had to assist my wounded comrades, give them water, dress their wounds. By 9:00 P.M. Komarov was feeling worse. After losing all hope of getting help from the other cutters, and bearing in mind that the wounded were only getting worse, I decided to swim for the east bank, get hold of a dinghy, and return for my comrades. I told Komarov that if the Germans approached he was to shoot at them with his submachine gun. At the same time I put life preservers on them. As I was getting ready to go, I happened to notice this dark spot approaching from a distance. I informed Komarov, saying that he should prepare for a probable encounter with the enemy. I hid in the machine-gun turret. I got my grenades ready and grabbed my submachine gun. That dark spot turned out to be a small boat. We guessed it was German and planned to let it approach to ten meters before shooting. When the dinghy reached that point I yelled: “Who’s there?” I heard the familiar voice of my comrades from AC-11 and AC-379. After that we transferred Petty Officer Svergunov and the other wounded to the dinghy. I removed the radio equipment and all sensitive documents and sent the wounded to the hospital at Shadrinsky Bay. At Shadrinsky Bay we met the commander of the other detachment, Lieutenant Peryshkin, who had sent the dinghy out to the cutter. The wounded were taken to the hospital on another dinghy. When Captain Tsybulsky arrived, I gave my report on the cutter’s condition and the damage it had sustained. I said there was no point trying to retrieve AC-34, since this could easily lead to the loss of another boat. Tsybulsky gave the order to remove whatever could be taken from the cutter. His men went out to the cutter that night and the following night, and they managed to remove enough parts and equipment to render the boat entirely useless. The bolt assemblies were removed from the guns.
For this operation I was awarded the Order of Lenin by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USRR on May 31, 1943. Also by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USRR, I was awarded the Medal for the Defense of Stalingrad on July 1, 1943.
Ivan Alexandrovich Kuznetsov (Lieutenant captain, commander of the gunboat Usyskin): A landing operation was effected at Latoshinka at the end of October. Many of the men in the landing parties were taken prisoner—national minorities, Kazakhs and Uzbeks. It seems that someone had given up our position, because at the end of October the Germans launched an intensive bombardment and mortar attack on our location. I didn’t leave my post, but after 2,300 rounds our gun barrels needed replacing, and since there were none available here I was forced to move so that another boat could take my place. The gunboat Chapayev took my former position and stayed there for exactly twenty-four hours. It was decided that they would be sent away from there because it was completely impossible to stay—they were being bombed day and night, people were getting wounded and killed.
Vasily Mikhailovich Zaginaylo (Deputy commander of the gunboat Chapayev): Some of the landing troops were taken prisoner, and it was because of them that the Germans discovered the positions of our boats.
In the morning the enemy sent nine aircraft to destroy the Northern Group. The bombs came close. But when the planes came on their third approach, the Chapayev left its position, and it was this alone that saved her from being sunk. [ . . . ]
The operation could have been successful if there had been a plan. But not even Gorokhov knew what was going on. So there was no way to assist the operation. The 300th Rifle Division provided no artillery support to the landing forces. Which is why they were almost completely annihilated at Latoshinka.
Yuri Valerievich Lyubimov (Senior lieutenant, navigation officer for a detachment of armored cutters, communications officer for Northern Group, Volga Military Flotilla): They tried to scuttle AC-34, but for some reason it failed to explode, so they left it. There’s no need to blow it up—it’s nothing more than a mangled, shapeless heap, no good for anything. That winter it was stripped piece by piece, and still now the hull sticks out at the place of her heroic demise, bearing witness to the terrible and bloody things that happened during the great epic of Stalingrad.