The battles of the 108th Tank Division near Trubchevsk in the memoirs of M. T. Kalashnikov and other narrative sources.

Borovkov Dmitrii PhD in History Associate Professor of the Department "Management in Social and Economic Systems, Philosophy and History" of the "Ural State University of Railway Transport" 66 Kolmogorova str., Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk region, 620034, Russia dpalochkinskij@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

In our previous work ^[1], we turned to the consideration of the memoirs of the weapons designer Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov about his participation in the Great Patriotic War from the point of view of their "external criticism". In particular, the texts of different editions of the memoirs were compared, the historiography of the issue was considered, and such an aspect as the internal chronology of this source was analyzed in comparison with the available documentary evidence.

The work carried out made it possible to draw a number of conclusions. Firstly, it was revealed that by now there has been no full-fledged scientific criticism of this part of M. T. Kalashnikov's memoirs. Secondly, the texts of memoirs from different editions, despite their general similarity, have a number of noticeable differences that require explanation. Thirdly, for some unknown reason, the author made a serious deviation from the real chronology of events, placing his participation in the battles in September - October 1941, and also extending it to several weeks. At the same time, an analysis of the documents of the 108 tank division (hereinafter – TD), in which senior Sergeant M. T. Kalashnikov served, as well as documents of the medical institutions in which he was treated, unequivocally indicate that the participation of the future famous designer was reduced to August 30 and 31, 1941. Thus, from the point of view of chronology and sequence of events, M. T. Kalashnikov's memoirs are completely unreliable. Nevertheless, we also concluded that the information potential of this narrative source has not yet been exhausted, and it is necessary to compare it in detail with documentary evidence, as well as other narrative sources. This work is devoted to solving this problem.

As noted in the previous work, the most important domestic documentary sources about the battle of 108 td west of Trubchevsk on August 30 – 31, 1941 are the division's combat operations journal ^[11], the report of September 4, 1941 ^[12], the report of the division headquarters on September 6, 1941 ^[13], diagram-report of the division headquarters dated February 12, 1942 ^[14]. In addition, in addition to the memoirs of M. T. Kalashnikov, a number of narrative sources about this event are currently available for research, including memoirs of other participants in the battles, as well as articles by front-line correspondents.

First of all, for a better understanding of the situation, it is necessary to describe the event context of the subject of the work, namely, to outline the course of hostilities and so on on designated dates.

The general course of the Roslavl-Novozybkov operation, during which 108 td entered the battle for the first time, is described in sufficient detail ^{[3, pp. 86-105; 4, pp. 14-21, 16]}. Hastily formed and understaffed (for example, instead of two tank regiments, it managed to form only one, the 216th, which consisted of the crew of Sergeant M. T. Kalashnikov), the tank division was included in the mobile group of Major General A. N. on August 28, 1941. Ermakova. In addition to her, 141 tank brigade were included in the group, which was to follow to the left (south) of 108 td, and 4 cavalry division in the second echelon. In addition, active interaction with the Font aviation was assumed ^{[12, l. 8]}. The group was supposed to launch a flanking counterattack on the 2nd tank group of Guderian from the east, from the area north of Trubchevsk ^{[11, l. 12]}.

However, the organization of the offensive left much to be desired. In fact, there was no interaction of the division with other formations and aviation. In a report dated February 12, 1942 ^[14], the main reason for this state of affairs was called an acute lack of time to prepare an offensive and organize interaction: from the moment the order was received from the command of the Bryansk Front to the advance of units, it was only 10 hours. In the morning, at 6:00, on August 30, 1941, the division marched from the Karuzha–Polovetsky area to the southwest in two columns.

The right (northern) column basically had a 108 motorized rifle regiment without one battalion, two divisions of the division's artillery regiment and other reinforcement units, including a company of T-40 tanks. Her task was to cover the division's strike group from the north. The latter formed the left (southern) column. Its basis was the only 216 tp in the division (5 heavy KV, 32 T-34, 25 T-40) ^{[13, l. 30]}, reinforced by the remaining division of the artillery regiment and marching guards consisting of two motorized rifle companies ^{[11, l.13]}. Judging by the JBD, there were also a number of BA-10 vehicles in the advanced security groups.

Two hours later (8:00), the advanced units of the division came across units of the 17th TD of the Wehrmacht in the area of the villages of Chekhov – Karbovka – Romanovka. The main divisions of the division, having no intelligence, without air support, it was at this moment (shortly after 8:00) that they were subjected to a massive (one-hour) raid by German aviation on the march, which greatly disorganized both groups. This is indirectly evidenced by the fact that in the documents the following records of the active actions of the columns relate only to 16:00 ^{[11, L.14]}. That is, for more than 10 hours, the divisions of the division came to order and pulled up to the enemy's concentration areas.

In fact, both columns engaged in two different battles on August 30: the right – on the northern flank near the villages of Chekhov and Karbovka, and the left – for the village of Romanovka on the southern flank. Since the crew of M. T. Kalashnikov fought as part of the left column (216 tp), we will stop at this particular area of the battle.

The combat guard of the left column, supported by 5 T-40 tanks, attacked Romanovka from the north at 16:00, and at 18:00 a more thorough attack was launched on the village consisting of three KV tanks and three T-34s. Both attacks were unsuccessful ^{[13, L. 30]}. ZHBD reports that the division's losses in these battles amounted to 15 people killed and 3 wounded, one KV, four T-34 and three T-40. The enemy's losses were estimated at five tanks and eight vehicles and about a company of infantry ^{[11, l. 15]}.

Immediately after the battle, it was decided to transfer the main forces of tanks to the forest northwest of Romanovka at height 182.8. However, less than an hour later, at 19:00, the enemy counterattacked from Romanovka with tanks supported by aviation, pushing the rifle company (apparently, carried out advanced guard and covered the regiment's maneuvers). The division commander, along with part of the division's leadership and a tank regiment, led an oncoming tank counterattack and repelled the onslaught of the enemy. It was also noted in the documents that constant enemy air raids led to the temporary failure of several tanks stuck in ravines. It should be noted that this battle is described only in the report dated September 6 and is not recorded in any way in the JBD ^{[11; 13, l. 31]}. The same report, unlike the ZHBD, provides somewhat understated data on losses from both the Soviet and German sides. Thus, the total (!) losses of the division for August 30 were estimated at one KV, three T-34s and five T-40s, the German losses were only four tanks ^{[13, L. 31]}. If you believe these testimonies, then all the tanks of the advanced forces of 216 tp, except for two KV, were destroyed.

At night, 216 tp was transferred to the west, to the forest with a height of 182.8 (i.e., the plan conceived at 18:00 was implemented) with the aim of a general attack of the division in the western direction the next morning. However, already at 6.30 on August 31, the enemy began an onslaught from both the north and the south with the main forces supported by aviation. At the location of 216 tp, the enemy launched a massive tank attack from Romanovka. According to the JBD, the fight lasted 3.5 hours. The division commander ordered "to meet the tank attack from the spot" ^{[13, l. 31]}. After 10.00, the regiment retreated north into the forest near the village of Karbovka. According to the division's JBD, losses during the battle amounted to one KV tank, six T-34s, two T-40s, 20 people killed and missing, as well as 12 wounded. Enemy losses were estimated at seven tanks and five vehicles ^{[11, l. 16]}. As noted in the previous article, medical documents indicate that it was on August 31 that M. T. Kalashnikov was seriously injured ^{[1, p.52]}. Apparently, he was one of those 12 wounded, and his tank was one of the six destroyed T-34s. The report dated September 6 cites the total losses of the division for August 31 in 1 KV, 11 T-34, 8 T-40, and the enemy in 22 tanks ^{[13, L.31]}.

Already on September 1, the division found itself in an actual encirclement and only by September 4 its remnants managed to break out in an organized manner ^{[11, l. 19]}. 17 tanks, 11 guns, 1,200 men and all the rear were removed from the boiler. The irretrievable losses of the division in tanks amounted to 53 vehicles, in personnel – about 500 people. ^{[3, p. 102; 4, p. 21]}.

Now let's turn to the test of M. T. Kalanikov's memoirs. It should begin with the fact that when describing almost all frontline episodes, the proximity of the forest or grove from which the Soviet crews operate appears. The fact is indirect, however, from the documentary descriptions of the battles of group 216 tp, given above, it clearly follows that the main fighting on August 30-31 took place in the space between the village of Romanovka and the forest to the north and northwest of it (at height 182.8).

To begin with, here is an episode of the memoirs of the designer:

"I remember one day our lieutenant ordered me to climb a tall tree and try to examine enemy positions. Having climbed to a sufficient height, I saw that the Germans were very close. So close that I could not remain unnoticed by them – they immediately started firing at me. Bullets whistled near me, cutting off tree branches and showering foliage. Out of surprise and fright, I slid down the trunk so quickly that in a matter of seconds I was on the ground. Yes, it was unpleasant to feel like a living target!.." ^{[6, p. 88]}.

Despite the fact that this passage raises some doubts about its authenticity (it is given in the "Trajectory of Fate" in 2007, but is missing in the earlier "Notes of the weapons designer" in 1992), it is quite plausible: in a situation of lack of normal intelligence and a rather flat and overgrown area, such a method of close reconnaissance was it is quite acceptable.

Further, M. T. Kalashnikov quotes the following lines: "The company went to the edge of the forest. The ground is streaked with caterpillar scars. These traces were left by us, the tankers, in the morning, participating in the counterattack ...

And so the fascists launched an attack on the dominant height again in the afternoon: eight tanks were slowly moving towards the positions of our infantry. Being in a tank ambush, we waited, trying not to reveal ourselves....

— What are we standing for, Commander? They'll crush the infantry...

And then the command came: to go to the rear of the fascist tanks. A swift dash from an ambush, volley fire from cannons — and several German cars caught fire ...

One day in September, we received an order to occupy the starting line in a dense grove, disguise ourselves and be ready for a counterattack" ^{[5, pp. 13-14]}.

Despite the fact that these passages are completely chronologically at odds with the information of documents 108 td, they can be compared quite well. So, the episode with the German attack on the Soviet infantry (recall that there were 2 motorized rifle companies in the southern column, which played the role of protection) and the counterattack of Soviet tanks is very reminiscent of the message about the battle north of Romanovka at 19:00 on August 30 ^{[13, L. 30-31]}.

The mention of the tank ambush in the grove well illustrates the message of documents about the morning battle on August 31, when Soviet tanks were ordered to meet the German attack with fire from the spot ^{[13, l. 30-31]}. It is logical to assume that, being located on the edge of the forest, the commanders of 216 tp would use this circumstance to disguise combat vehicles.

Next, let's turn to the fragment about the injury of M. T. Kalashnikov: "It happened in one of the many counterattacks, when our company, entering the flank of the Germans, ran into an artillery battery" ^{[5, p. 15]}. This passage also easily illustrates the data of the documents. The morning battle on 31.08 lasted, according to the JBD, 3.5 hours. It is natural to assume that such a prolonged battle of tank units, which is of a maneuverable nature, included repeated attacks and counterattacks from both sides. It is worth adding to this that the instructions of M. T. Kalashnikov in the previous fragment about a certain morning battle may also well illustrate the messages of the ZHBD. The 3.5-hour battle, which began at 6.30 am, could well be perceived by M. T. Kalashnikov as several combat episodes. A person who is constantly in a stressful situation may well later perceive a prolonged battle as a clash throughout the day. Especially when he thought about it a few decades later.

Recall that in the first part of the "Notes of the Gunsmith's designer..." M. T. Kalashnikov mentioned the evening battle, and a new task that his platoon commander set for him in the morning ^{[5, p. 4-5]}. This also agrees well with the documentary evidence: several maneuver battles north of Romanovka in the period from 16.00 to 19:00 - 20:00 on August 30 and the reflection of the morning German attack on August 31.

Of course, M. T. Kalashnikov mixed up the events of the evening of August 30 and the morning of August 31 in the text of his memoirs. However, it is already more than possible to believe in the "aberration of memory" of such a small scale: the battles of these two days were almost continuous, and their specific episodes in the head of an ordinary participant could well combine into one plot. On the other hand, it is obvious that each specific episode of the designer's memoirs does not contradict the documentary sources in any way, but quite organically complements them.

Separately, it is worth mentioning the episode with the very shooting down of M. T. Kalashnikov's tank and his injury. In a previous paper, we have already noted that in different versions of the memoirs, this episode is described in different ways. If in the early "Notes of the weapons designer" he mentioned only one hit in a tank, after which he almost immediately lost consciousness ("The tank of the company commander caught fire first. Then suddenly a booming echo hit my ears, and for a moment an unusually bright light flashed in my eyes... I don't know how long I was unconscious. Probably for quite a long time, because I woke up when the company had already left the battle" ^{[5, p. 15]}), then in the later "Trajectory of Fate" this story was supplemented with another one ("Then there was a blow to our car, and after that suddenly there was complete silence. Maybe we were just stunned, but at that moment it seemed to us that the fight had stopped. As a tank commander, I decided to open the hatch and see what was going on around me. I had just climbed out of the hatch when a shell exploded nearby. For a moment, an unusually bright light flashed in his eyes..." ^{[6, pp. 90-91]}).

It is quite difficult to assume, in our opinion, that in the second case the author would not have received any injuries in the face and head area. However, military medical documents unequivocally say that M. T. Kalashnikov was treated only for a blind wound to the left shoulder joint ^{[2, p. 3]}. This leads us to assume that the earlier version of this episode is more reliable than the later one. Apparently, M. T. Kalashnikov was wounded by fragments of armor that flew off from the inside.

It is interesting to note that the memoirs of M. T. Kalashnikov are not the only narrative source about the battles of the combat group 216 tp. So, within the framework of the "I Remember" project, the memories of Leonid Grigoryevich Katz, a radio operator of the T-34 tank, who served in the same battalion as M. T. Kalashnikov, were recorded. Here is a fragment of his interview:

"For several days we acted from ambushes and really fought successfully. I remember the glee of my crew when we shot down the first German tank. And then the environment... They went out by forest roads, there was no fuel, the shells ran out. Well, the most important attack is the German aviation. We were mercilessly bombed all day long… We felt like targets in a shooting gallery..."^[7].

This fragment fully confirms both the memoirs of M. T. Kalashnikov and the documents: actions from ambushes, constant raids by enemy aircraft, well documented.

In 2001, the memoirs of the famous leader of the Soviet armored forces, Hero of the Soviet Union, General Ivan Nikolaevich Shkadov, were posthumously published. In August 1941 He was the Assistant Chief of Staff of the 216th Tank Regiment for intelligence. Here are a number of fragments of his memoirs:

"The reconnaissance units of our 216th tank regiment... the 17th panzer division of the Germans was met by a halt on the roads...we did not meet with either reconnaissance or German protection, but immediately stumbled upon the columns of the main forces...

Our regiment, deployed at the edge of the forest, met the enemy with fire from the spot, and then ... struck at the columns of the Germans... As a result of a kind of counter-battle, the 17th panzer division was dealt a heavy blow, it suffered heavy losses... but our losses were also increasing. As a result... the German tank group managed to cut off our division from the main forces of the Bryansk Front...

It should be noted that this battle took place in conditions of absolute superiority of the enemy in the air and on the ground" ^{[15, pp.53-55]}.

Despite the fact that I. N. Shkadov described the events of August 30-31 rather superficially, they are quite consistent with the information provided by M. T. Kalashnikov and L. G. Katz, as well as documents of 108 td.

Here you can also give another memoir evidence – the memoirs of the war correspondent of the newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda, Pavel Ivanovich Troyanovsky. Shortly after the described battles, he interviewed the commander of the 108 TD, Colonel S. A. Ivanov, and many years after the war used these recordings in his book:

"As we were told, almost the brunt of those battles fell to the 108th Tank Division. Firstly, unfortunately, its advance into the concentration area was discovered by enemy aerial reconnaissance, and the compound was subjected to fierce bombardments several times a day. And yet, at the turn of the settlements of Voiborovo and Molchanovo, Soviet tankers managed to defeat the advance detachment of the 17th tank division of the enemy, and at 19 o'clock on the same day, the 108th met with the main enemy forces. From the Romanovka area, it was simultaneously attacked by 150 tanks and an SS motorized regiment. And from the air, this attack was supported by up to 50 Junkers.

- And yet we did not flinch, - Commander of the 108th Colonel Ivanov told us. After waiting, they brought down the fire of all our artillery on the fascists, and the tanks struck from the spot. The enemy, of course, did not expect such a rebuff. And we, taking advantage of his confusion, rammed the attacking left flank with a group of heavy tanks...

We ask the division commander:

- What is the current state of your connection?

- In the most difficult. We gave our best," the colonel replied, "We can say that almost one number remained of the division. And there are only a handful of people and equipment..." ^{[9, pp. 26-27]}.

It is noteworthy that some formulations of this fragment almost verbatim repeat quotations from the documents of the division. This is not surprising: both the documents and the text of the interview were created at about the same time by the same person – Commander S. A. Ivanov.

Finally, here is another interesting narrative source published by activists of the Bryansk region search movement. We are talking about a newspaper article written by correspondent V. V. Kirsanov and published in the frontline newspaper "To defeat the Enemy" No. 230 dated October 1, 1941. The title of the note is "The Courage of the Kalashnikov tankman." Here is its text:

"In the battle with the Nazis near the town of P., senior Sergeant Kalashnikov showed exceptional courage... The Germans opened heavy fire on the car from an anti-tank cannon. Two shells pierced the side wall of the tank, the third, exploding inside the car, killed the crew commander. Kalashnikov received three wounds. Without losing his composure, he avenged the death of a comrade. He drove his car forward at high speed, mercilessly destroying German soldiers with his tracks. Operating under heavy enemy artillery and mortar fire, the tank plowed through the enemy's firing line. And only after feeling a sharp decline in strength, Kalashnikov took the car to the rear of his unit."^[8]

As you can see, the author wrote a note from someone's words and greatly embellished reality for propaganda purposes. V. V. Kirsanov completely incorrectly named the position of Kalashnikov as a driver mechanic, and "killed" the tank commander. In addition, here we are talking about three hits (recall that the designer himself in different editions of the memoirs spoke about either one or two). Note that the much more prosaic story of M. T. Kalashnikov himself looks much more realistic. Obviously, the future designer never found out about this note. Indirectly, this is confirmed by the fact that he himself quoted or mentioned newspaper articles or documents in his memoirs several times that concerned him personally, but this one never became the object of his attention.

Thus, it is obvious that the memories of the future designer from participation in the battles of August 30-31, 1941 practically in no way contradict other narrative evidence of the same events. The only thing that can be noted is that M. T. Kalashnikov, for some reason, "did not notice" the constant enemy airstrikes, which all other sources, including documentary ones, speak about in unison.

Summing up, we note that, like any source of personal origin, the memoirs of M. T. Kalashnikov are a difficult text to interpret. On the one hand, chronologically it is completely unreliable: the duration of participation in the battles of the future designer (2 days instead of several weeks), their calendar dating (September – October instead of August) are so at odds with objective data that the idea of M. T. Kalashnikov's conscious distortion of his memories is involuntarily born. At the same time, a detailed comparison of the descriptions of specific combat episodes with the documents of 108 td and other narrative sources allows us to conclude that these stories themselves are very reliable and illustrate the dry lines of the division's JBD and reports of its headquarters quite well.

Thus, we can confidently conclude that the memoirs of M. T. Kalashnikov, with due criticism, can be considered as a valuable narrative source for the reconstruction of the battles of the combat group 216 tp in the Romanovka area on August 30 – 31, 1941. Moreover, as it turns out, he is the most voluminous and detailed of all the memoirs available today, telling about these events and it cannot be ignored by researchers of the history of the 108 Panzer Division.