Gregor Koronov
NAME- Gregor Koronov
NATION- Soviet Union (Belorus)
DATE (S) OF INTERVIEW (S)- January 1985, November 1993
PLACE OF INTERVIEW- Bamberg, Germany; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
LANUGUAGE (S) CONDUCTED- English
SIGNIFICANCE OF SUBJECT- Red Army tank commander, veteran of the European and Far East conflicts. Operated with and supported partisan units. Expert on NKVD military tactics.
OTHERS IN ATTENDANCE- Dr. Naille Sidtikova, Rudolf von Falkenhahn (Germany).
FORMAT- Q & A standard.
Q- When were you born and where are you from?
A- I was born on 29 March 1920 in the town of Ossipowizhy in Belorus, north west of Bobriusk.
Q- What was your family like?
A- My father was a school teacher, and my mother was a typical house
wife. I had two brothers, both killed during the war and a sister who
lives today in Moscow. We had a comfortable life even under Stalin
and the Communists; my father had been a soldier in the First War
who joined the Bolsheviks during the Revolution. He was a little sad
that things did not work out as had been promised, but he was
always patriotic, and he taught us to be as well.
Q- When did you join the military?
A- I joined in 1938 when I was eighteen years old. I was always
impressed by tanks and they took me because I was short and
smart. We had to pass exams to get into school, but this was during
the purges by Stalin and officers were disappearing left and right.
We were apparently not being trained by the most competent and
experienced people. This deficiency was to prove itself later.
Q- Where did you first serve?
A- After training in the Ukraine I was transferred to the Far East Army. We did not even have tanks, mostly armoured trucks and cars with machine guns. The Army had already fought the Japanese once before and lost, but we were getting ready to fight them again in Mongolia and Manchuria. We had a battle in September 1938 with a Japanese unit that was apparently lost. We shot them up, they shot us up, and after it was over our we had three vehicles out of seven still operational, and all three of their vehicles and one tank was destroyed. We took only two prisoners from this company, they rest had died attacking us with swords and pistols. It was the craziest thing I had ever seen up to that time.
Q- Where was your next area of service?
A- I was sent to the Karelian front, positioned at Toksha in 1939. Later when the war against Finland began I was assigned to a transportation unit. Again we had no tanks and I was driving a supply truck. That winter was the coldest experience of my life, and men died on both sides. We would launch attacks against Finnish positions, only to have enemy ski troops attack our flanks, destroy a column, and disappear. We could never catch them. They crossed the frozen marshes with great ease and we were never safe. This was a dirty and bitter war that could only end badly, no matter who won. I was never wounded during this fighting, but I lost three trucks, all of which were shot to pieces while I was in them. Once I was bombed by my own aircraft, killing a dozen men in the back of the truck. I was the only person not injured, believe it or not.
Q- How did the Second World War start for you?
A- Well, we called it the Great Patriotic War, and my war began the first day of the German invasion. I was now in a tank, a Czech model and very small with a 20mm gun. This was totally inadequate against the German tanks and was only effective against trucks, cars, and the occasional infantry in the open. They broke down so often we walked as often as we rode. The summer of 1941 was nothing but a backward journey for us despite Stalin’s orders to the contrary. The purge had done its job; we were militarily neutered and we knew it, but we could not speak about this. Informants were everywhere and no one was safe. However, this was a system I had grown up with, so I did not know any better. I believed that ‘enemies were everywhere’ as did my comrades. Things would get much more personal later.
Q- You fought near Leningrad in 1941, tell us about that.
A Yes, that is correct. The Germans were heading towards Leningrad
and we were told to block the German infantry, this was in the Pripet
Marsh area. In the Pripet Marshes on the road to Leningrad we were
barely holding our own against the German attacks, which were
furious and relentless. They had so many well armed and battle
hardened troops, and we were outnumbered in armour since so
much of ours had been destroyed. One of the methods we were told
to employ was ludicrous. We managed to use mine dogs against
their tanks, but this only worked part of the time, since the dogs
would become crazy from the shell fire and run under anything,
German or Soviet, sometimes even running into our own troops for
comfort just to escape the hell. The [tilt rod] packs actually destroyed
as many of our own tanks as German. Well, we knew that somehow
we had to create some partisan activity, resorting to conscription in
many cases, and the political commissars went around the villages,
trying to recruit even the old and very young. When this did not work
due to the flood of refugees fleeing to the east, our commissar, Fedor
‘something’ asked for volunteers to attack a village of ‘collaborators’.
We went in, shot the people, killing over thirty, and then took a couple
of German prisoners and placed them in the street, shot them, and
laid them out as if they had been part of the massacre. Later at
another time our unit had some disciplinary problems, and the men
to be punished were given civilian clothes and ordered to carry
grenades into the German lines. It was sheer suicide, but they knew
that their families would be spared a visit from the NKVD, which was
not something one wanted to dwell upon. This sort of activity
provoked the Germans into reacting, and their predictable brutality
would surpass ours, and the desired result would produce several
partisan groups wanting revenge.
Q- Did this type of activity ever backfire against you?
A- Unfortunately for our commander the truth was later learned about his activities against the civilians. One of the men who joined our unit had escaped the massacre, and he identified several people, and spread the word to others. He killed our CO and then deserted to the enemy. This was a very nasty business.
Q- How did your command handle deserters when caught?
A- They would be shot or, if a point were to be made, they would be publicly hanged after a public trial. In my unit there were only a couple of incidents and these were for cowardice under fire, not actual desertion.
Q- What was your opinion of Vlasov and the million other Soviets who defected to the Germans?
A- People could not believe that a man such as Vlasov could become a traitor to Russia. However, this reality became known after Vlasov, as well as General Gersdorff and others broadcast a speech. He spoke about Stalin, the crimes he committed, the failures of the Communists to keep their promises to the people, and that Russians should all consider themselves only Russians and not Soviets. It had a tremendous effect on those already tired of the system, and probably contributed to the defections experienced in many units. We believed that these people were definitely traitors, but I thought about it this way; how many people had truly been victims of Stalin? How many had lost their families, or even their own lives to the prisons and gulags? I wondered about the poor soldiers we captured. If they were not killed outright, their lives were effectively over. What about the families of those purged who also perished? What about the millions of Ukrainians who were starved to death or even killed outright? I could understand their disaffection with the system. My father felt the same way, but he would never turn on his own country, regardless of the political system. I felt the same way as he did.
Q- You were also at some the great battles of the war. Would you tell us about them?
A- I was at Pripet and Demyansk, where we had the Germans surrounded for several months. I was in the 2nd Shock Army under Vlasov’s overall command, and some of us were transferred to the 20th Army as replacements because they had taken so many casualties. We fought with the SS troops, and they were the toughest soldiers I ever fought. I would meet them again, especially at Kursk.
Q- Tell us about Kursk. What was it like for you?
A- The Germans advanced in the first week of July 1943 and I was a platoon commander, a lieutenant in command of four T-34s. We had several running battles, but it was around the middle of July that my tanks were attacked by German aircraft. The Stukas came in low and two tanks were on fire. We returned machine gun fire and smoked one of the Stukas, but the other three were returning for another pass. Their cannon began to roar, and my tank exploded, the second tank still running blew up completely, the turret flying off, killing everyone. In my tank I was once again the only one unhurt. The driver was dead, gunner dead, and loader wounded. My uniform was smoking but no damage. The next day I got a new tank, and we destroyed two Mk. IV types, as well as a half-track with infantry. Unfortunately, we ran into three Tigers, and they were out of our range. All we could do was run and try to ambush them later, since we had greater speed and manoeuvrability. I lost two tanks again due to those damned eighty-eights they carried. Unfor-tunately our tanks had no radios, which I think was the greatest detriment to any chance of individual success. Later we managed to find those Tigers, and as a company we cornered them and destroyed them. The big battle involved hundreds of tanks; I lost two more tanks during the big engagement near Orel, but I destroyed another Mk. IV. The greatest threats were not the tanks, not in the dust, smoke and confusion, but of the infantry with those panzer-faust rockets. They took out so many tanks, and then I saw Germans with mines running through the running and stalled, burning vehicles attaching them to the tracks. We fought off many attacks from Germans like this, and I must admit that I was confused, were they brave or just suicidal? It was something I can tell you.
Q- What were some other battles you fought?
A- Well, after Kursk I was in the fighting to recapture Kiev. Then I was promoted to captain, and had my own tank company. I was then sent home for leave, then to school to learn on captured German tanks, anti-tank vehicles, and even anti-tank rockets we had captured. This lasted for about three weeks. I then was sent to the Romanian sector, and we fought in the Carpathians, which was not very good for tanks, but no one asked me my opinion. We wore out transmissions faster than we could fix or replace them. After this I fought in Hungary and Austria, then I was transferred to the Far East again for the planned invasion of Japan, which did not happen, as you know. I ended the war and then became an instructor. I finally went to university and became a mathematics teacher, and I retired from this some years ago.
Q- You started out as a tank driver. What was it like in a T-34?
A- Very cramped and with a four man crew there was not much room. The one thing I remember was that in school they gave you four things; an operators manual for the tank, a Makarov pistol for self defence, a pair of goggles and a hammer. I looked at the hammer, wondering what it was for. Once we began driving, I found out. The gearbox was very stiff and it took the hammer to knock it in reverse or to go forward sometimes. This was very inconvenient. However, despite this, the speed of the tank and the low profile saved us many times. The seventy-six-millimetre gun was adequate against even German armour, but only in a flank shot, and only in the rear against German heavy tanks. Our fuel consumption was good compared to the Germans, but we always had better supply lines than the Germans later in the war. However, our armour plate was not that good except on the front, with the early models having fifty millimetres, which against German guns was not that good, but the sloping armour gave it greater survivability.
Q- How is life now that the Soviet Union has collapsed?
A- Well, this is an interesting question. Sure, we have more freedom, but there are no jobs really, the country is broke, and the criminals run the country. Then again, one could argue that the criminals always ran the country, they just changed jobs. I can only hope things get better.