Motti - The Push to Save the 163rd Rifles

(Source)

Krasnoarmeyets Sergey Yegorovich Puzanov and his two man section of Aleksandr Tikhonovich Kharzin and Boleslaw Stepanovich Strelnikov were walking behind a T-26 tank, perhaps ten meters behind as the smell of the tank's exhaust, while warm, was making them sick.

"Tovarishch Puzanov, how far are we to advance today? My feet hurt." Kharzin was always complaining, today was no different.

"Sasha, you complain more than the old women in my village." Strelnikov muttered.

Puzanov turned and was walking backwards, looking at the two men as he did so, "I could send you boys back to the politruk¹, you could complain to him. I'm sure he would explain to you the duties and responsibilities of the New Soviet Man. None of which, I assure you, involves complaining. It reflects badly on the Red Army and Comrade Stalin!"

At the mention of Stalin's name, Kharzin stopped talking. His grandmother had used that name to frighten the children into behaving.

"You have to understand them Lera, most of them are from small villages, far from the cities. Many of them didn't even wear shoes in the summer before they were conscripted. These are not educated city folk, nor your vaunted vanguard, the Soviet worker." Starshy Leytenant Pashin lit his pipe as he walked beside the battalion's political officer, Valerian Vitalievich Konnikov.

"But Lubomir, it is our task to educate them, to make them understand the necessity of this struggle." Konnikov was passionate about his work, Pashin had to give him that.

As Pashin exhaled the smoke from his pipe, it was so cold it was hard to tell his breath from the tobacco smoke, he heard a familiar sound from further up the column. The chattering of machine guns and the bark of cannon fire.

"The Finns!" Pashin drew his pistol as he beckoned to his small command group to follow him. Looking at Konnikov he yelled, "Come on Lera, there is fighting to be done to spread the joys of socialism to our neighbors the Finns!"

Konnikov drew his side arm and reluctantly followed Pashin forward. He wished his colleague would be a bit less sarcastic, he also wished he would stay further away from the fighting. Konnikov knew he was a coward and it bothered him, though he couldn't, for the life of him, explain why.

Puzanov was confused when Strelnikov had asked, "Why are they throwing bottles, Seryozha?"

Looking forward he caught a glimpse of a bottle just before it smashed apart on the back deck of the tank they were following. Immediately the deck burst into flames and then the tank jerked to a stop as the burning liquid dripped into the engine compartment.

The turret on the T-26 began to rotate to the left, even as Puzanov got his little command into the ditch beside the road. He yelled at his boys to search for targets as he tried to figure out just what the Hell was going on. There was lots of shouting, machine gun fire, and the hissing of fire as another bottle smashed against the top of the T-26's turret.

It happened so fast, too fast for Puzanov to make sense of any of it. The flaming liquid flowed into the crew compartment. As he watched, the hatch slammed open and the tank commander began to climb out, beating at the sleeves of his jacket, which were on fire.

Puzanov heard the screams of the other two crewmen as the flames filled the interior of the vehicle. Another bottle hit the tank, this one broke and completely engulfed the commander who screamed in anguish before collapsing back into the tank.

Puzanov turned his attention back to his duties, his two men were firing into the woods near the track. "What are you shooting at!"

Strelnikov said, as he reloaded his Mosin-Nagant², "I don't know Seryozha, but everyone else is shooting!"

"Hold your fire you two, don't shoot unless you see something to shoot at! We're wasting ammunition!"

Pashin commandeered a machine gun team as he headed up towards the front of the column, the men had been content to sit and do nothing as no one had given them any orders. As their leader had said, "What if we are needed elsewhere? The lieutenant expects us to be here, so we wait here."

It had take Pashin waving his Tokarev³ in the man's face to get him to follow. In addition, the man had recognized the insignia of the politruk Konnikov standing next to Pashin. His fear of the Party overwhelmed his idea of duty. Initiative was not a trait to be encouraged in the Red Army.

"Set your Maxim up here, Comrade, cover that tree line to the left. There! Do you see the muzzle flashes?" Pashin felt as if he were driving mules into position, not soldiers.

After the gun was in position, the men manning it began to fire at the Finns, serving the gun was something they knew how to do. "Just give us a target, Gospodin⁴! We'll do the rest!"

"The man is a Tsarist!" Konnikov protested as he followed Pashin further up the stalled column.

"No Lera, just a simple peasant. When will you understand?"

The firing died down as the sun began to set. Puzanov was worried, he wasn't sure if they were expected to spend the night in the open, many of the men would die if that was the case. But they needed to break through to the 163rd Rifle Division, trapped in Suomussalmi. If they fell back now they would only have to fight for this ground again. There was no time.

Puzanov heard someone come up the road, just as he heard outgoing fire from what had to be a Maxim, perhaps they were being reinforced, his lieutenant, Pashin, joined him in the ditch. Also, much to Puzanov's surprise, the commissar, Konnikov.

"Situation Seryozha?" Pashin managed to gasp out, it was obvious he had been running hard.

"Comrade Lieutenant, I think the Finns pulled back, they hit us, draw blood, make us deploy, then they move off to do it again. But we can't stop Comrade, it will be bitter cold tonight."

Konnikov grimaced and said, "How could it possibly get any colder?"

Puzanov sighed and said, "It just does Comrade Commissar, I don't know why, it just does."

In the dying flames of the burnt out T-26, Lieutenant Pashin gathered his men and they began to push ahead. Other Russians were also pushing forward. Somewhere, up ahead, their comrades in the 163rd were waiting.

But in the darkness and the deepening cold, so were the Finns.

¹ A portmanteau of the Russian words "politicheskiy rukovoditel'" (политический руководитель) - political officer.

² Standard Soviet infantry rifle.

³ Standard Soviet issue side arm.

⁴ Lord, an old term for a man of the nobility