I was born in Kirovograd on September 25, 1926. We lived there till 1941, and then were evacuated to the Rostov oblast, to Golubinka kolkhoz. But by the end of 1941, the Germans was already approaching Rostov oblast. We left for Stalingrad and were living near the Volga River on a boat. Later, in the winter of 1942, we moved to Pugachev where our uncle lived.
Five families were living in one room there, four occupied the corners and one was in the middle. I was in my sixteenth year so I started to work with my mother. There was a water mill in town, and a generator. So I found work as an electrician's apprentice. And my mom was working at a spaghetti factory where they made noodles for hospitals. I worked at the mill till 1943, and then I turned seventeen, which was the draft age in the Soviet Union. So on October 1 I was called up for service.
We were brought to Saratov. We were outfitted there and sent to the Rifle Regiment 534 outside Stalingrad. We only caught the tail end of the Battle for Stalingrad where the Germans were encircled and destroyed very soon after our division arrived.
After Stalingrad, we were sent to Primorski Krai, to the town of Voroshilov-Ussuriisk. Then we walked 70 km to the Japanese border. It was pretty quiet there; no one tried to attack us. We were building defense lines, digging trenches. We had few alarms and a couple of close calls but really nothing to tell about. The Japanese were occupied fighting the Americans in the Pacific and the English in India then, so we were not their primary interest.
In 1945, the Great Patriotic War as we call it, ended. Some people call it the Second World War, but for us it has a different meaning. But the war with Japan was still going on. On August 8, 1945, there was a regimental formation and the commander read out an operation order that on August 9 at 4:00 a.m. we were to set out against Japan, because they had taken over the whole of Manchuria.
With the nightfall we arrived at our starting points. It was raining very hard and I had never seen such a downpour before. The water was running right along the trenches, and we weren't allowed to unroll our coat rolls. You would lie on one side till it got cold, and then you'd roll onto the other side. At four o'clock sharp there was a green rocket, which meant get up and go! We passed the frontier posts: all the Japanese soldiers were taken care of - our reconnaissance worked well. The order was not to touch anything and just pass by.
Then we reached a frontier town, which we had to storm. The entrance into the town was a tunnel. Japanese soldiers were waiting for us and the attack was not successful. We didn't get through and we lost a lot of men there. We were withdrawn before nightfall and during the next night our artillery and aviation started their part. They did their work there, and in the morning we came in again. Everything was clouded with smoke. There was no one left in that town already, but there were these pillboxes where the samurais were sitting and waiting for us. They were offered to surrender but they didn't agree - I heard that the Japanese almost never gave up, for they were very proud people. So we did what we had to do.
Then we proceeded to Kharbin in Khabarovsk Krai where there were a lot of Russians meeting us with bread and salt. All the Japanese soldiers retreated. We moved to the Yangtse direction where the Kwantung Army had their headquarters. On the way there we faced serious resistance from the Japanese, a few fights and a lot of casualties. I somehow managed to get away without a scratch, even though I never hid behind the backs of my fellow soldiers and was proactive in every fight.
We passed by the Khingans, and there were only mounds and hills further on. One day we were marching through a hilled area and it was very peaceful and quiet, and then suddenly a machinegun started firing from somewhere. We were ordered to take the position, and figured out where the fire was coming from. We stormed the hill where the enemy was, and when we got to the top we saw just one samurai chained to the rock who was shooting from his machinegun. He got killed, of course. I guess his comrades had left them there to die.
We finally reached Kwantung Army headquarters. It was September 3, and they didn't know about the capitulation of Japan yet. We were informed but their army commander didn't know anything about it. So we wanted to inform them about this before engaging in a fight, hoping they would surrender. We dispatched a few people to come to their outpost to talk it over. So they did, but the Japanese commanders didn't believe us, saying that there is no way Japan would surrender - and if they did, wouldn't the Japanese Army know first?
Our guys were smart and said "We are giving you one day to contact your authorities. You are surrounded and don't stand a chance in a fight. But we don't want to kill you, for your country is lost and there is no need for more people to die." The next day we got a message from the Japanese that they got in touch with their people. And so, they surrendered. The whole Kwantung Army surrendered to us without a shot fired. I was happy we didn't have to kill anyone.
We took over their headquarters and their food and weapons. We took them as prisoners of war, and later they got transported to a camp in Primorski Krai, somewhere in the Ussuri taiga. I know that some were sent home and some remained in various labor camps. Many died in camps as they weren't used to the cold.
I got demobilized later, and proceeded with my life. Many things have happened since then, which I'm not particularly keen on talking about right now. The biggest event was that I moved to the United States with my family and I really miss my home now. That's all I want to say.
