Moderator: John W. Howard
Oleg, sadly I do not read or speak Russian. I am rather dissapointed by the lack of material concerning the Soviet side of WW 2 in the English Language. Do you know any accounts regarding the Soviet units in the war?oleg wrote:Soviet penal battalions were composed of officers that did something that angered their superiors. Penal companies were composed of soldiers who did the same thing ; The "troops" described by Prix hardly fit any of these units. If anybody has a knowledge of Russian, here is memories written by CO of such a penal batallion:http://www.rkka.ru/memory/pylcyn/main.htm - " Penal Strike or how Officer's Penal Battalion went all the way to Berlin". Actions fought by PBs also differed considerably from widely accepted "NKVD MG behind you" theory. For instance 8th independent PB, attached to the 3rd Army under Gorbatov, on february19 1944 inflitrated German rerar areas in the vicinity of Rogachev and conducted 5 day raid (offically recognasance in force) disruptimg German suply lines. Needless to say that there was no blocking detachemnet supervisng that. Btw there was even Penal Fighter regiment (under Soviet ace Fedorov they flew La-5 and gave rather good account of themselves).
AlsoAt the left: major Alexander Vasilevich Pyltsyn (it is probable, 1945).
On the right: it in a rank of the colonel, our days.
During war Pyltsyn odered about rotoj 8-th Separate penal (officer) battalion (originally the battalion was in submission of the Central front). Fighters shtrafbata validly named it "batej", though almost all (was at fault officers, after all) were more senior than it on age, and many ? and on "doshtrafnomu" to a rank.
I can go on with the rest of the article but basically thats the gist of it. It does sound like an interesting book. I would really like to be able to read it.[/quote]I have passed the part of Great Domestic war by the commander of a platoon and mouths in an officer penal battalion. It is a lot of years me the atmosphere of any strange default in the literature, press and in general in mass media of history of these penal battalions excited. As is known, they began to be created in 1942 after the order of the National Commissioner of Defense of the USSR ? 227, Familiar to much as Stalin's Order ? to a step back! ?. But anywhere, neither in various sorts publications, nor in military memoirs of outstanding military leaders about these battalions it is spoken nothing, and in the Soviet military encyclopedia about penal parts it is told only in general and with reference to armies of other countries. Even to us having the direct attitude to these military divisions, corresponding bodies then strongly recommended to not be distributed about them. It is necessary to tell, as about our 8-th Separate penal battalion of 1-st Belarus front for the first time openly it has been mentioned only in 1985 ? in a sketch of an observer of " the Komsomol truth ? by I.Rudenko. And in 1995 the correspondent of the Russian TV Alexander Afanasev in a series of telecasts to the 50-anniversary of the Great Victory over the general name ? my war ? has in detail opened essence of operations of ours shtrafbata.
Nevertheless continued to appear (especially in "reorganization" years) publications in which either insufficiently informed, or the engaged authors, poddavshiesja a then fashion to run down our military history, represented these unusual military formations by the general words, not finding distinctions between front officer penal battalions and army penal mouths
However, despite of their general accessory to concept "penal", yes, maybe, and on putting on on those and on other especially complex fighting problems, it there were completely different military formations: they were not similar first of all on structure (shtrafbaty penal mouths ? from private soldiers and sergeants, and frequently have consisted of was at fault officers, and from criminal elements, etapiruemyh to front from jails), and also on the organization, a level of fighting skills and fighting experience.
About features of use in fights of officer penal battalions, about some details of their regular organization, arms and that it was necessary to go through during stay in such shtrafbate, I and tell in this book. What has led me idea to begin work above it? All post-war years I all the same hoped that from set of fighters shtrafbatov (them it was created on 1?2 on each front, and fronts was: Belarus ? 3, Ukrainian ? 4, Baltic ? 2, moreover LeningradKarelian, etc.) will be somebody who can is truthful, more or less in detail, on an actual material to tell about these unique formations Great Domestic as though from within. But, alas ?
My fighting friends on shtrafbatu (and first of all my wife Margarita, since 1944 past with us) many years pushed last versts of war me on this hard, responsible work ? to write the memoirs on war for contemporaries and descendants.
And here, probably, time has enjoined me to undertake for this necessary and important, in my opinion, business. Especially now, when many of my fighting comrades any more did not become. My duty and to their memory, and to the conscience still revolting in much occasions has forced me to write this book
To save up history of all our heroic generation so it is important now when she, this history, at times so unscrupulously, is tendentiously deformed, perverted by the some people, if one may say so, historians, writers, and it is simple the favourites aspiring on the sensational half-truth to acquire capitals in literal and figurative sense of this word.
For my long enough years of a life in general (to me "will soon knock" 80!) and 40-years army service many events in particular have dropped out, it is a lot of meetings with people, including rather known. Main my purpose ? through people with which I was pushed together with circumstances, through events by which the life was filled to show that uneasy, but really heroic time which remained now only in memory of representatives of ours alas leaving, generations of winners.
Attempts to intrude this area of history of people which are not cooked in hellish boilers what were penal officer battalions, and sometimes and simply setting as to themselves the purpose deliberate distortion of history of Great Domestic war, create wrong representations about shtrafbatah, taking in that history the place and played the (the!) a role.
As we did not conduct diaries (to officers of a first line, to put it mildly, it was ? not from a hand ?), the most difficult, that in the beginning it seemed to me in general insuperable are flaws and failures of memory, the artful memory which in the course of time have lost many details of events, names of villages and cities in which they occured, surnames and names of fighters and commanders with which side by side it was possible to live and go through that liholete. And to all this also absence of an opportunity to address to the military archives which now have appeared in the friend
Therefore my immense gratitude that who has helped me to recall much from overlooked
I did do some research on Rokossovsky. It appears that he was, like many Soviet officers caught up in the Great Purges. In fact, the beginning of the war found him in a Siberian labor camp. He was given a chance of rehabillitation if he would lead a unit composed entirely of convicted criminals, both common and political. His actions made him a hero of a sort in the Soviet Union and even Stalin was willing to give him some slack at the end of the war. He also wrote an autobiography which I plan on reading sometime.Defection was a serious problem in the Red Army, particularly in the first year of the war, and the Soviets countered it with their own form of military terrorism. In May 1942 the NKVD* organization was established under L.P. Beria the chief of internal security, to deal specifically with military deserters. NKVD was given enormous power to deal with those suspected of disloyalty and their families, including that of execution without trial. A new guidance on penal battalions was also published. By May 1942 each Russian front cmmander had ten to fifteen penal battalions at his disposal. The battalions were headed by staffs or ordinary soldiers and officers. Discipline was enforced by a guard company. Staff and guards were highly paid and got special pension benefits for this unpleasant and sometimes dangerous work. The penal units (not only battalions)were used widely and were not allowed weapons until they entered the line. All soldiers in penal units knew they have the only two chances: to win or to be killed. (The famous 16th Army of Rokossovsky was completely penal). They often attacked through minefields as "tramplers", whose bodies by the score marked the passage of the Red Army through a field. In the assault on the "Cauldron" at Stalingrad sixteen penal battalions were concentrated in the 21st Soviet Army area and twenty-three in the 65th Army area on the Don Front. Official Soviet army casualties during the war were listed as 20 million but were actually much higher, including the penal battalions, whose statistics were not kept. Gorbachev gave another figure, 27 million, in May 1991. In most Soviet attacks, several penal battalions were completely wiped
out.
TheFerret wrote:http://216.198.255.120/russianpart/ruspenalbat.html
I did do some research on Rokossovsky. It appears that he was, like many Soviet officers caught up in the Great Purges. In fact, the beginning of the war found him in a Siberian labor camp. He was given a chance of rehabillitation if he would lead a unit composed entirely of convicted criminals, both common and political. His actions made him a hero of a sort in the Soviet Union and even Stalin was willing to give him some slack at the end of the war. He also wrote an autobiography which I plan on reading sometime.Defection was a serious problem in the Red Army, particularly in the first year of the war, and the Soviets countered it with their own form of military terrorism. In May 1942 the NKVD* organization was established under L.P. Beria the chief of internal security, to deal specifically with military deserters. NKVD was given enormous power to deal with those suspected of disloyalty and their families, including that of execution without trial. A new guidance on penal battalions was also published. By May 1942 each Russian front cmmander had ten to fifteen penal battalions at his disposal. The battalions were headed by staffs or ordinary soldiers and officers. Discipline was enforced by a guard company. Staff and guards were highly paid and got special pension benefits for this unpleasant and sometimes dangerous work. The penal units (not only battalions)were used widely and were not allowed weapons until they entered the line. All soldiers in penal units knew they have the only two chances: to win or to be killed. (The famous 16th Army of Rokossovsky was completely penal). They often attacked through minefields as "tramplers", whose bodies by the score marked the passage of the Red Army through a field. In the assault on the "Cauldron" at Stalingrad sixteen penal battalions were concentrated in the 21st Soviet Army area and twenty-three in the 65th Army area on the Don Front. Official Soviet army casualties during the war were listed as 20 million but were actually much higher, including the penal battalions, whose statistics were not kept. Gorbachev gave another figure, 27 million, in May 1991. In most Soviet attacks, several penal battalions were completely wiped
out.
not trueand were not allowed weapons until they entered the line.
not trueThe famous 16th Army of Rokossovsky was completely penal).
maybe in paralell universe -27 million is figure of all Soviet war dead- military and civillian.Official Soviet army casualties during the war were listed as 20 million but were actually much higher, including the penal battalions, whose statistics were not kept. Gorbachev gave another figure, 27 million, in May 1991. In most Soviet attacks, several penal battalions were completely wiped
Rokosovskiy released before war with Finalnd. The first unit he got under his command was mechanized Corp - where did you do your reserach?????????I did do some research on Rokossovsky. It appears that he was, like many Soviet officers caught up in the Great Purges. In fact, the beginning of the war found him in a Siberian labor camp. He was given a chance of rehabillitation if he would lead a unit composed entirely of convicted criminals, both common and political. His actions made him a hero of a sort in the Soviet Union and even Stalin was willing to give him some slack at the end of the war. He also wrote an autobiography which I plan on reading sometime.
For the last 25+ years, 95% of my free time has been directed to researching and studying the Stalingrad battle.yes -casualties -not deaths. Btw it seems that you missed peopel who died in German POW campsRuss Schulke wrote:Red Army Casualties, 1941-1945
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Total Armed Forces Losses, June 1941- May 1945
Killed in battle or died during evacuation: 5,187,190
Mortally wounded (and died later): 1,100,327
Died of illness (non-battle): 541,920
Missing in action or captured: 4,455,620
Non-mortal wounds: 15,205,592
Non-mortal illness and frostbite: 3,138,556
Total Armed Forces Casualties: 29,629,205
Equipment Losses, June 1941- May 1945
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Tanks and self-propelled Guns: 96,500
Artillery: 218,000
Aircraft: 88,300
http://www.fireonthevolga.com/Red%20Arm ... -1945.html
Russ
http://www.fireonthevolga.com
I do not believe I missing anything, that number is reflected in missing in action or captured: 4,455,620. For the last 25+ years, 95% of my free time has been directed to researching and studying the Stalingrad battle.
