The site features 193 wartime stories and photos

The Frontline Album A Tale of a Soldier’s Boots My grandfather who now lives in Ukraine served in an infantry unit from the first day of the war. At first, the retreat was long but later the Russians learned to fight and began pursuing the enemy. This seems so easy to say but actually it was a very painstaking and slow advance, kilometer by kilometer. Tanks carried infantrymen only during assault operations. Tank drivers, exhausted after combats and tiresome roads, were rather reluctant to take on fellow-travelers who ran the risk of falling under the caterpillar. Therefore, infantrymen are known for walking the roads of war. And what is the basic necessity for a foot soldier? Boots! My grandpa was lucky to fight in most luxurious boots – even generals, to say nothing of officers, would often wear primitive tarpaulin boots. As to my grandpa, it matters little where he found them – a neighbor could have given them to him as a gift or he might have sewn them to order before the war...>> Grandfather was reborn near Rzhev In the frosty winter of 1942, his 174th Rifle Division was fighting defense battles near Rzhev. Many people were killed in a bloody battle on February 10. My grandfather’s head was badly wounded. After the battle, he was put into a communal grave by mistake. When the gravediggers started filling it with earth, my grandfather went into convulsions. He was alive, but unconscious. He endured a long ride to the hospital, a coma and a difficult operation. Medics extracted big shell splinters, but had to leave the small ones. My grandfather survived, but his relatives were told that he had been killed in action...>> The story of senior lieutenant Koshel Ivan Koshel was born in the village of Podgornoye in the Dnepropetrovsk region in 1923. On July 7, 1941, he was drafted into the Soviet Army. After training at a machine-gun school in Leninakan, he was sent to the 776th Mountain Regiment. On December 31, 1941, grandfather was sent to the village of Kamysh-Burun near Kerch where he killed 20 Nazis. Later he was wounded in the arm and evacuated to Tuapse...>> Nurse, heroine, singer Shortly after she left school in 1941, Yelena F. Tarakanova began working at a hospital train. Being a member of the Komsomol, a Communist party youth organization, she had received some training as a nurse at school. However, the train was bombed and never reached the front. She had to return home to the Voroshilovgrad region and work there at an outpatient clinic...>> Love, S. In 1941, Sergei Valmus turned 45. In spite of his poor health, on June 22 he decided to go to the front. He was not immediately taken on, but when the front approached Moscow, even middle-aged men of poor health like him were sent to the training camp to form people’s militia battalions...At that time his elder daughter Olga worked in the State Library and younger daughter Tamara – at a plant. In October Sergei’s militia battalion was passing through Moscow on its way to the front... Some pencil lines written on a postcard in the lawyer’s accurate handwriting… A cold evening in October, the personnel of the people’s militia battalion that defended Moscow is dwindling after each battle (it consisted of civilians – professors, lawyers, scientists, etc.); an elderly, badly wounded man who does not know yet that his wound is mortal is wrapping himself up in his overcoat, thinking about his wife and daughters whom he has not seen for months and wishing to live just for another day amid the frozen fields…>> A Grand Piano and the Marines A 1.5-ton truck had quickly passed the battered road from Lnostroi and entered the dark streets of the town. Not a street-lamp or a ray of light was visible from the windows covered with blackout curtains. Vologda had introduced martial law in the first days of the war. The truck carried artists. They had to reach home before curfew, or they would be detained by the patrol...>> Behind the front lines: Toil from Dawn to Dusk, Scarce Ration, and Interrupted Sleep My grandfather, Grigory N. Bobkov, does not like talking about the war. For him, the war was a boring routine. There was no rushing into battles and no victorious marches across European capitals - just toil from dawn to dusk, scarce rations, and interrupted sleep; and then toil again. The family moved to Moscow in the 1920s. In the 1930s, my grandfather studied at a college, then went to work at a plant, flew a glider in an aero-club, which he had to leave after conflicts with his trainer. His age peers finished the training, but most of them died in the harsh aviation battles in the summer of 1941...>> My grandfather was taken captive after his commander betrayed him Pyotr Alfimov was my mother’s father. He died in 1993 and did not talk much about the war. His wartime story was a short one. Grandmother told me about it. In 1941, he finished school somewhere in the North Caucasus. With other students he dug antitank trenches on the border with Chechnya but the Nazis did not reach there. In 1942, he became a marine with the Black Sea Fleet. “I do not remember what ship he sailed on. They usually sailed on different vessels…>> Pyotr Shepel Pyotr Shepel was born into the family of Olga Zateichuk and Konstantin Shepel, in the village of Kharkivtsy (Kmelnitsk region) on November 2, 1928. Spending his early years in a small port on the Black Sea coast, he dreamed of becoming a sailor. When World War II broke out, he volunteered to become a Black Sea fleet ship boy and took part in many battles...>> Alexander Tretyakov Alexander Tretyakov was born in the village of Pochinki, the Gorky region, in 1927, into a close-knit family: his parents Tatyana and Konstantin, brother Pavel and sister Maria. He attended the Kovrov Railway Engineering School, where he was noted for his excellent academic skills...>> 1.. 2.. 3.. 4

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