On February 28, 1943, Esfir Genkina, assisted by stenographer Olga Roslyakova, interviewed several commanders and soldiers of the 38th Motorized Rifle Brigade who had captured Field Marshal Paulus and his staff on January 31. They brought the interviewees to the Stalingrad department store so that they could relay on site how the capture had taken place (pages 222–261). While in the department store, Genkina encountered Alexander Parkhomenko, a private who had been quartered there together with his company since the beginning of February. Parkhomenko had played no role in the capture of Paulus. The interview with him appears to have been unplanned and differs from many of the others, which involve decorated soldiers and high-ranking officials. As such, it gives a good impression of how a simple soldier in the Red Army talked and thought.
Parkhomenko’s remarks are straight to the point. He measures the events of the battle within his own radius, in contrast to the sweeping panoramas provided by the generals and staff officers. And unlike Vasily Zaytsev, Parkhomenko does not tell a hero’s story. On the contrary, he confesses that whereas others were brave he was not. His descriptions of the fear he weathered in battle are revealing. He speaks about his weaknesses (“I was a complete coward, but I didn’t know it at the time”) in the past, signaling that he, as a good Soviet citizen, had learned to conquer his baser instincts. Also noteworthy is his description of the “inexperienced” lieutenant, who, equipped only with petrol bombs, attacked several German panzers and died. Parkhomenko thought little of suicide missions, which he considered a means to display one’s readiness to die. (In early 1943 communist agitators did not praise suicidal bravery as much as they had in the first phase of the war, though it continued to be one of several competing models of behavior in battle.) Parkhomenko was in line with army commander Shumilov, who valued military skills and sought to conquer his opponent with cunning instead of confronting him in a head-on manner.162
64TH ARMY
(38th Motor Rifle Brigade)
Alexander Ivanovich PARKHOMENKO163
I was born in 1921 in the Far East, in the area of the Far Eastern railway. I finished engineering school in Vladivostok. Since 1942 I’ve been a member of the Komsomol. I joined the navy in September 1939. In 1941 I went back home because I was ill, and I noticed that there wasn’t anyone my age there. I started asking relatives and friends: Where is everyone? They said they’d all left for the front. Seeing that all the others had left, I started wishing I could go too. I started writing to my commanders. But they wouldn’t let me go: Stay here, we’ll do our fighting here.164 A marine brigade was being formed, and they took me. That was on February 22, 1942. They sent me to the regimental troop school at the Rozengartovka station.165 I was a student there for about five months. I left with the rank of senior sergeant.
We left for the front on June 12, 1942. We got there, to Stalingrad, on June 28. They filled out our marine brigade with extra personnel from the infantry. From Stalingrad we headed straight toward the Don. We weren’t acquainted with the military situation. To us it seemed dreadful. At night when the planes flew in, the flares went up, and the bombing began—I couldn’t take it. I’ll tell you the truth: other men are brave, but I’m not.
We got to Vertyachy166 and took up positions. Then we went out with the intelligence officer. Basically, we were on patrol. He ordered me to scout out the enemy forces. We’d been assigned to the third echelon, which was right in Vertyachy. We crossed to the other side of the Don. Now we weren’t really familiar with some of the infantry uniforms, and it was night—you couldn’t see a thing. There was a patrol walking up ahead, he was not Russian and he was wearing this strange kind of jacket. We shouted at him: “Password!” He didn’t know it. Since he didn’t know, we started shooting. So did he. The enemy brigade advanced, and we moved to meet them. They opened fire on us. We were under machine-gun fire from two directions, and then it stopped all of a sudden. We radioed our brigade. Everyone in the brigade was ready, they wanted to attack. We’d read in the papers that the enemy launched psychic attacks, marching in columns.167 When I looked, I could see a column moving either toward or away from the front line. We immediately sent up signal flares and got on the radio. They told us on the radio that these were our own men.
After that we were on the other side of the Don. Our brigade went on the offensive on July 15 and suffered heavy losses. They made me adjutant to the intelligence officer. We attacked the enemy in the area of the villages of Tinguta and Peskovatka.168 We didn’t have any vehicles, so we had to get there on foot. We’d just joined the fight and were taking losses when we were sent back. Orders came from high command, so we went to Tinguta and dug in. The defensive line ran from Tinguta to Peskovatka to Ivanovka. All our battalions were there. We were at the command post with the intelligence officer.
On August 23, 1942, we were hit by a heavy air raid. At first there were four planes: two would bomb while the others reloaded. Then the first pair would fly off while the other two attacked. The dust rose up. The German tanks advanced through this dust. The airplanes were constantly circling overhead. And you know how unbelievable the dust is Stalingrad. It’s incredible, and there’s no water, no nothing. [ . . . ] We were attacked by German tanks. On August 24 tanks came from the area of Blinkino and concentrated in the area of Sarepta. The intelligence officer was ordered to ascertain the enemy strength in the area of Sarepta. We went to carry out this order. This was when the intelligence officer got hit. As adjutant, I was ordered to deliver him back to the unit, regardless of whether he’d been hit or torn to pieces, and if that didn’t work I was to give my own life trying to save the valuable documents he had with him. I grabbed both him and the documents and took them to brigade headquarters. He was seriously wounded. I was very careful with him. We had just reached the brigade commander when he died. Nothing else to do: I had to go back to the company and continue our work. Lieutenant Khodnev was made the new intelligence officer. We got into a BOB-I armored vehicle and went to scout out the enemy forces in the area of Blinkino station. We found out what they had there and came back. The enemy’s strength had been established. They had three armored vehicles. These were scouts in the vehicles, maybe paratroopers. We drove to Blinkino station, parked, and set off on foot to secretly observe the tanks. Their tanks weren’t well camouflaged, they were just sitting on top of a hill.
An inexperienced lieutenant from another unit was also trying to find out how many tanks the enemy had. They wanted to torch those tanks. Someone said: “Get down!” Petrol bombs hit the tanks, which turned around and fired at them—and that was it, the whole platoon was neutralized. But the lieutenant, he jumped into a trench when the tanks started coming. A tank drove over there, went back and forth five times to run him over. This was reported to command when the tanks left. The intelligence officer was Lieutenant Kuzin, who also got killed.
In late August we got to Stalingrad and took up defensive positions on the Volga. The brigade was supposed to be in communication with the left flank. We took an armored car out on reconnaissance. This was on August 27. By that time the enemy was already at the Tractor factory, and they were firing on the Volga with machine guns. While were out, I became gripped by fear and lost it. I was a complete coward, but I didn’t know it at the time. Fifteen dive-bombers were attacking our vehicle. I figured that if one them dropped a bomb, it would be the end of me. So I ordered them to stop the vehicle so we could escape into a ravine. One of the planes went into a dive, and I got shot in my left hand and both legs. The driver was okay. I climbed into the turret and he drove us back to our unit. We made it, but I couldn’t get out. They sent me to Beketovka. There was a field hospital there. I stayed there until evening. Then they moved me to the island, and from there they sent me to Field Hospital no. 2209 in Shchuchy. I stayed there for five days. Then I was sent to Leninsk. From Leninsk I was supposed to be evacuated to the far rear. They started loading me into a railcar. But the moment I was on the train, enemy aircraft came flying in, bombing and burning nearly everything. They sent me to Kapustin Yar. I stayed in the hospital there. I was there from August 27 to October 26. On October 26 I was sent to the 178th Reserve Regiment in Solyanka. On the same day I was assigned to the 38th Brigade. They put me in intelligence again. I was deputy commander of intelligence. On November 3 we went to the front. My legs were weak, so I couldn’t keep up. In view of this, Major Belyayev made me chief of the supply depot. I ran the supply depot and ferried ammunition from the east bank to the west bank. We supplied ammunition throughout November. Our ammunition depot also took in captured weaponry. From there we went straight to Beketovka. In Beketovka I was sent beyond our advance units on reconnaissance.
[ . . . ] We left there on January 28 to go on the offensive near Stalingrad. I went with Sharin, Kiselyov, and Klimov to scout out the entire left flank. The 2nd Battalion of 57th Army was active in this area. We struck the enemy head-on. After that we were on the defensive. What did we do while we were on the defensive? There were German planes in the air, and we started shooting flares at them. They started dropping things on our positions: thermoses with chocolate, bread, ammunition. They dropped all kinds of food to us, they dropped rations on Beketovka many times. We were always getting things from their side.
Soldiers of the 13th Guards Rifle Division after the battle, February 1943. Photographer: G. B. Kapustyansky
On January 31 I was at the command post. We were at the hospital for water transport workers. By then our forces had General Paulus surrounded. I got up early and went to see. I went with a politruk to find a car. We found one with gas, with everything. Then we went back to the company commander. Then we changed our quarters and began to live in the basement of this department store.