TANK EXTERMINATORS

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 May 1942, Page 8

TANK EXTERMINATORS

RED ARMY’S METHODS.

Tank exterminating has become a favourite occupation among Red Army men. Everybody in the Soviet Union knows of the recent exploit of 28 Guardsmen of General Panfilov’s division who repulsed an attack by 54 enemy tanks. This handful of Red Army men was led by Commander Diyev. Another unit, led by Florov, destroyed in one engagement 38 of a group of 107 Nazi tanks (writes a contributor to “Soviet War News”). Every Soviet unit now has its expert “tank-exterminators.” One of them is Vassily Putchin, who has so far wiped out 37 enemy tanks singlehanded. He says he will not be content until he can claim 100.

He vividly remembers his first encounter with a German tank. The gigantic machine came bearing down on him as he lay in a shallow trench. Ten, fifteen, twenty seconds passed. Putchin did not stir, but grasped his bundle of hand-grenades a littletighter. He raised his head slightly. The important thing to decide was the right moment to hurl his missiles, and the right point to aim for. Suddenly he noticed that the bullets from rhe tank’s machine-guns were striking the ground beyond his point of ambush. That was the signal for action. He hurled his bundle. A deafening explosion followed and when the smoke cleared he saw he had struck down his prey. Putchin has an inquisitive mind. He was determined to discover the most vulnerable spot in the structure of a German tank, so that he could work out the best method of sealing it up and preventing the crew from climbing out when the flames caused by the fuel bottle began to scorch them.

He experimented with a damaged German tank. Climbing through the hatch, he asked a friend to hurl a fuel bottle. He heard the bottle strike the lower. Smoke and (lame poured through the spy slit. When the heat : nside the tank became unbearable, Putchin leapt out triumphantly. He had found the tank’s weak spot One night scouts reported that 20 enemy tanks were moving on a village. Putchin and seven comrades lay in ambush near a bridge leading across a gully. Dawn was breaking when the enemy column approached. The Red Army men, armed with grenades and fuel bottles, were ready for their victims.

At a given signal one of the men, Arkhipov, tackled the leading tank and set it on fire.' Parfenov accounted for two others. A moment later Putchin put a third out of commission. Altogether die eight men accounted for eight tanks. The crews were either burnt alive or shot.

Putchin discusses the finer points of tank extermination with great deliberation. “I don’t hurl my bottle when the tank draws up level with me, but before it reaches me. I aim at the engine or else at the tower where the spy slits are.” Hundreds of his soldier comrades listen intently to his advice. Every Soviet regiment on the front line is now a school for tank-ex terminators.