[烛光生存狂]-【苏芬战争老兵回忆】尼古拉·阿列克谢耶维奇·波诺马连科

http://www.mannerheim-line.com/veterans/ponomarenko.htm

Winter War started for me two months after my graduation from Odessa Artillery Academy in September 1939. This was one of the best academies of the country, training highly expert artillery officers for service in heavy and super heavy artillery regiments (203 mm, 280 mm and heavier calibers). We, the ones who graduated from the academy, could quickly and precisely prepare and calculate fire mission data in field conditions in several ways (up to six methods of calculation), including analytic method with calculation of all the corrections and adjustments (wind, air temperature, temperature of the grenade, grenade weight deviation and other, even an adjustment for rotation of the Earth).

Teachers in the academy were mostly honest and highly trained, former officers of the Royal Russian Army. They tried to teach us not only artillery science, but also traditions of the Russian Officers' Corps - honesty, unanimous obedience to the superiors, accuracy in following orders, preciseness in work, politeness, fitness, cleanliness and tidiness in uniforms, quick analysis of the environment and good decision-making.

We the graduates of the academy could very well read the map, could quickly build our own maps, carry out forward observation and fire adjustment, write battle reports and draw maps of battle areas. This was the training that I as a young Lieutenant had with me when I arrived at the 168th Super Heavy Artillery Regiment. We were over 20 men who arrived at the regiment at the same time from the academy. The 168th Super Heavy Artillery Regiment was stationed in Western Ukraine in Chertkov[切尔科夫] and had four artillery battalions. On arrival to the Regiment I was appointed the chief of forward observation team, 4th battalion; battalion commander was Captain Semen Savelievich Maltsev[谢苗·萨维利耶维奇·马尔采夫] - a smart, caring, just and demanding commander.

As the war broke out, the Regiment received an order to move to the front. The regiment was moving to the front battalion by battalion, each battalion occupying two cargo trains. On the way to the front the battalion made long stops, for receiving extra materiel - mostly, warm clothes, padded jackets, padded pants, felt boots, helmets, helmet liners, and sheepskin coats for the officers. During the journey there was special artillery training of the personnel and political classes. The discipline was very tight - everyone knew that we were going into the war. Out 4th battalion only arrived at the station of disembarking in late December and was attached to the 90th Rifle Division, 90th Rifle Corps. Our entire Regiment was distributed among rifle units, each battalion was attached to a rifle division.

The 4th Battalion unloaded the train at Perkjarvi station[基尔皮奇诺耶] and occupied firing positions at Perkjarvi lake area in 24 hours. The firing positions were in some 10 kilometers from the frontline. The battalion's mission was to establish contact with all artillery units in the area of responsibility of the 90th Rifle DIvision, and jointly with them carry out reconnaissance of the concrete bunkers. Only when we knew that we dealt with a concrete bunker, not a bunker built of wood and soil, we started to destroy it. The anti-concrete shells could only be used with permission of the higher artillery officers (we were sparing those shells for destruction of concrete bunkers of the Mannerheim Line).

Battery commanders of our battalion - Senior Lieutenant Grinev[格里尼奥夫], 10th battery, Captain Shevchuk[舍夫丘克], 11th battery, Senior LIeutenant Sereda[谢列达], 12th battery with their forward observers and I with my forward observer and a phone operator went tot he forward observation posts of the batteries of smaller caliber, and jointly with them we were carrying out reconnaissance of Finnish gun weapons emplacements. The enemy's positions were very strongly camouflaged and the enemy did not fire. MG nests were so well camouflaged that it was merely impossible to find out, what it was - a hillock or a camouflaged MG or gun position. One had to wait for the artillery of smaller calibers to open up the soil surface of the hillock. The enemy delivered strong and precise mortar strikes, while it only opened intensive machine-gun fire from the MG nests and trenches when our infantry units tried to carry out reconnaissance in force, that was, were imitating an all-out offensive. Each time our infantry suffered high losses, although our artillery fired intensively, trying to suppress the enemy's MG's. We, forward observers, were spotting enemy's MG emplacements during the assaults and later opened them up with precise shooting from our cannons.

Infantry used a lot of armored shields on skies, but from what I saw, they did not bring any use. The infantry advanced under protection of the shields to the assault area, which was in some 200 meters from our trenches. The shield was heavy, it was hard to push it, and the main problem was that one could not see a thing! There was a gunport for observation and firing a rifle, but infantrymen still had to stick their head out, in order to find the direction. It was very convenient for the Finnish riflemen to aim at the top edge of the shield, and as soon someone's head appeared from behind the shield, - pam, that was it. So, even when infantry used the shields, they would often all be wiped out before they could reach the line of assault.

I don't know about the other rifle units, but the 90th Rifle Division had an interesting routine - before an infantry assault, the battalion commander would come to me and request me to give him a written paper that would state that there were no concrete bunkers in his area of responsibility, otherwise he would cancel the assault. I had to take risks and issue such certificate every time, thinking, what would happen, if we missed some bunker, and then... I would be summoned to the Special Department of NKVD and so on. So I was quite nervous every time when I had to write such a paper.

In this respect I am recalling a funny and sad episode: after yet another unsuccessful assault by our infantry, the rifle battalion commander came to me with the "absence of bunkers" paper that I had written the day before and pointed me a "concrete bunker" on the terrain. We had to ask for a permission to use concrete-piercing shells in order to destroy the bunker. Senior Lieutenant Grinev was ordered to complete this fire mission. Senior Lieutenant Grinev was known for his quick mind and originality in our battalion. He also demonstrate this during the fire mission. As soon as we had arrived at the front, he made a deal with a 122 mm gun battery commander that he would adjust fire from the observation post of the 122 mm battery, and would only build phone connection between his battery and the 122 mm battery, using the same phone operator. By doing this he saved about 5 km of field phone cable, as 122 mm battery positions were some 5 km closer to the front than our firing positions.

Both battery commanders - Grinev and the 122 mm battery commander were firing on the enemy, the 122 mm battery with high explosive shells, while Grinev with 203 mm concrete-piercing. After Grinev fired three concrete-piercing shells, Grinev's phone operator confused the fire orders and told the 203 mm battery "2 high explosive grenades, quick fire", although this order was for the 122 mm battery. The officers at the firing positions of the 203 howitzers doubted the correctness of the command and asked for confirmation. The phone operator confirmed the wrong order, and two 203 mm high-explosive shells that were much heavier than the concrete piercing ones, flew towards the enemy at the same sight settings. Flying some 600 meters short of the target, they hit the CP of our battalion. Doors of the CP dugout flew away, soil tilted, in some 20 meters from the d

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