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In three years of war on the Eastern Front-from the desperate defense of Moscow, through the epic struggles at Stalingrad and Kursk to the final offensives in central Europe-artillery-man Petr Mikhin experienced the full horror of battle.
In this vivid memoir he recalls distant but deadly duels with German guns, close-quarter hand-to-hand combat, and murderous mortar and tank attacks, and he remembers the pity of defeat and the grief that accompanied victories that cost thousands of lives. He was wounded and shell-shocked, he saw his comrades killed and was nearly captured, and he was threatened with the disgrace of a court martial. For years he lived with the constant strain of combat and the ever-present possibility of death. Mikhin recalls his experiences with a candor and an immediacy that brings the war on the Eastern Front-a war of immense scale and intensity-dramatically to life.
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Petr Alexeevich Mikhin trained as a schoolteacher before the Second World War and served as an artillery man throughout the conflict. He fought the German army in the battles for Stalingrad, Kursk, Ukraine, Moldova, Rumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia, and late in the war he was transferred to the Far East to fight the Japanese army in China. He was wounded three times and suffered shell shock, and he finished the war as a highly decorated officer with the rank of a captain. After the war he returned to teaching mathematics in civil and military schools, and he retired as a lieutenant colonel. Petr Mikhin is the author of numerous short stories and three books, all of them based on his extraordinary wartime experiences.
"Guns against the Reich" is easily one of the more interesting, enlightening, forthright and revealing Red Army memoirs I've had the pleasure to read. Petr Mikhin was rushed through officer training and served in the artillery arm of the Red Army. Often we hear that artillery is the "God of War", and this memoir will show the power that artillery can exercise on the field of battle when wielded by an experienced observer, commander, and crew. Taking part in the fighting around Rzhev, Kharkov, Kursk, the Dnestr and numerous other rivers and cities throughout eastern Europe, Mikhin paints at times a rather bleak but moving portrait of the Red Army, his fellow soldiers, the war effort in general, and himself. How did Red Army officers deal with suicidal orders on the part of their commanders? How does one deal with an officer who cared more about getting drunk than directing heavy battery fire and saving the infantrymen he was responsible for? How did artillery observers execute operations they were never trained to undertake but were volunteered for by their superiors? All of these subjects are candidly discussed and Mikhin spares no words or judgments for either his own actions or those of his subordinates and superiors. At times Mikhin's reminiscences defy logic, but simultaneously exemplify that in wartime anything is possible. Some of the more revealing events in Mikhin's Red Army career were his encounter with SMERSH (death to spies) and the accusations that were leveled against him; more interesting was how he proved his innocence.... The fighting around Rzhev, now made known/famous by David Glantz's "Operation Mars", is brought to life with Mikhin's reminiscences of the quagmire he and his battery operated around and the missions that he, as an artillery observer, was forced to undertake in order to find specific German artillery or mortar batteries and silence them. Along with the recently published memoirs of Boris Gorbachevsky, Mikhin brings to life the needless sacrifices asked of Soviet soldiers as they were continuously forced to an agonizing duty of attacking and counterattacking a deeply entrenched enemy with ever weaker Red Army forces.
Interestingly enough, Mikhin was ordered/forced to go on multiple scouting missions with the goal of capturing a German prisoner for interrogation. Usually this was done by trained scouts, but here we encounter multiple failed operations by scouts and a commander's decision to send out artillery observers in their place! Their eventual success is telling of Mikhin's ingenuity, as well as that of the men he operated with. An operation I have yet to encounter from the point of view of a Red Army soldier was that of Popov's Mobile Group in 1943. This was the scratch unit ordered to exploit Soviet success post-Stalingrad and eventually it set the stage for Manstein's famous 'backhand blow' outside Kharkov. Mikhin was part of that unit. For all the talk of Manstein's genius, seeing the position Popov's group was in, their difficulties and what was expected of them, it is evident that their eventual failure was sown in Red Army hubris, thinking that the Germans could not rebuke them as easily as before. Another revealing encounter with the enemy featured the author accompanying a battalion commander and his unit into an attack through dense fog. During their silent advance the entire battalion, some seventy men, were accidentally pivoted and walked parallel to the German trenches instead of toward them. The battalion commander stubbornly refused to acknowledge what happened and only with the dissipation of the fog by rain did he realize his mistake. Unfortunately, the end result was a decimation of the battalion by the Germans as they were caught in the open and subjected to deadly flanking fire. Finally, without a doubt the most interesting episode in the memoir was the author's destruction and ensuing capture of almost 1,000 Germans and Soviet Hiwis in Moldavia. A lone battery of four howitzers with 26 men was sent to cut off a German force, at least over a thousand strong, escaping the Iasi-Kishinev encirclement. The ensuing action by the author and his men cost them 24 lives and almost all of their ammunition; one by one they were wounded, again and again, and eventually killed by enemy mortar fire. Nevertheless, the Germans, without knowing the true condition of their Red Army opponents, began to surrender. As the sole unharmed Soviet soldier ran to gather up the prisoners, the author even while wounded moved from one howitzer to the next, zeroing it in on the Germans, to keep up the ruse that the battery was still operational as they waited for reinforcements. Overall, a very descriptive, sincere account of an artilleryman at war. Highly recommended for those interested in WWII, the Eastern Front, and/or the Red Army.Read more ›
With all the recent Soviet WW2 memoirs being published in English recently this one stands out as a good read. Petr Mikhin is recruited young as a Soviet Officer and by the age of 23 he leads an entire artillery battalion - having by then lost most his borthers in arms many times over.
The battles presented are gritty and important and the later part of the conflict in former Yugoslavia is paticularily interisting, but in the book we find Mikhin doing front line duties in the Rzhev meat grinder battles, then going off to the Stalingrad offensive, then on to the edge of the Kursk battles - you will find Mikhin in the center of things.
Surprisingly for an artillery officer he is often at the forefront of the battles, commanding direct fire with howitzers against the Germans. One also gets quite a feel for the enormous losses the Soviets suffered and Mikhin writes well enough for the reader to feel some of those deaths rather than them being a list of statistics.
Being a front line officer Mikhin is exposed to constant front line action for years on end without almost any reprive. In this I found his experience is similar to Evgeni Bessnov's in TANK RIDER: Into the Reich with the Red Army. I recommend both as the do compliment each other, even if I consider Mikhin's book a little better.
Mikhin also goes to describe what happens behind the lines and of political intrigue and callous commanders.
In all a good read and a big piece of the Eastern Front Puzzle seen from the Soviet side.
This book is captivating. There are many lessons to take from it on a tactical point of view for gunners as well as infantry personnel. There are situations useful to describe the challenges of command and how his exemple founded his legitimacy, although he was a very young officer. Many lessons are still valid despite the fact that they are taken from such a particular front between Germany and USSR in WWII.The experiences of this officer are also so unique that you can read it almost like a novel. It is one of the best books describing the war experience of an artillery officer that I have ever read (among many).
This book took me a while to find. I had read accounts by Vasilli Grossman on the Eastern Front which were excellent but I wanted to get an insight into the front line infantryman's war on the Eastern Front.
After browsing amazon for ages I found this. An excellent book, well written and excellently translated into english. Do not be put off by the "artilleryman" role in the title, this belies what Mikhin really got up to and as an artillery forward observer he really was in the thick of the battles from the defeats in Op Barbarossa right up to victory at the war's end. He has fascinating tales of daring prisoner snatches and other sometimes ludicrous missions he was sent on, so plenty of excitement!!
The book also provides a good analysis of what being an artillery officer, commanding men much older than you was like. It also gave me a fascinating insight into the ridiculous Russian chain of command, the crazy orders that he as a junior officer was told to carry out and the petty political discipline expected on the russian soldier while fighting in horrendous campaigns.
If you want a great and readable analysis of life in the Red Army throughout the war from initial defeat through to resulting victory then read this book, you will not be disappointed. I think this book is true testament to the unsung heroes that saved Russia in the frontlines and as the book itself points out were never recognised by the Soviet Government!!!
