Now the fun bit!
A quick google search of this guy came back with his memoirs
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In September of this year (2015), a disabled veteran of the Patriotic War Anatoly Kondra turned 95 years old. Back in 1941 he graduated from Kharkov military medical school and was sent to the 457th Howitzer Artillert Regiment in Kutaisi. However, he was not carrying out his military service in Georgia for long: the war had begun. Fate threw medic Kondra to the front line, from Novorossiysk to Kerch, from Rostov to Stalingrad, Leningrad to Finland. He helped to liberate Romanie, Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria from the German invaders and greeted Victory Day near Prague.
In Kuban
On the first day of the war, the Regimen was ordered to go to the border with Turkey. Following the negotiatons and when the Turkish troops had been diverted from our borders, the Regiment joined up with the army of the North-Caucasian front, on the Taman Peninsula.
“The firing positions were laid out on the Chushka spit” said Anatoly Nikitovich.
“Within 3 months, our long-range artillery and aviation had destroyed the coastal fortifications and defenses of the Germans, who were in the Crimea, on the other side of the Kerch Strait.”
In December 1941, the regiment was relocated urgently to Novorossiysk and loaded onto a ship for landing in Kerch, where bloody battles were fought. Upon arrival at the Kamysh-Burn port, we began to unlead our military hardware and suddenly, there were Fascist bombers in the sky. Our aircraft entered into battle with them and destroyed them. However, many of the soldiers were injured and I had to accompany the seriously wounded to hospital for surgery.
By the end of April 1942, the regiment was in the Crimea at the front line, in the area of the villages Kasayan Russian and Kasayan Tatar, they were at high altitude. For the next period, I accompanied the wounded in the back of a truck, changing their bandages, giving injections and then, suddenly I saw soldiers who fled to the sides shouting: “The sky! The sky! The driver immediately turned off the road to the side and pulled up. I was just about to jump off the chasis when a bombshell exploded only 10 metres away. The explosion threw me to the ground, the driver took me and we continued on our way to the hospital. There we began to prepare the wounded for surgery, and I was given a few shots of painkillers and in the morning was sent back to my unit.
Once again, whilst returning to the medical battalion, I met the officers and soliders of our regiment, who reported that all of our equipment had been destroyed by the German aircraft and they were going onwards to Kerch. In the area of the spit Chushka, were around 1,500 people. Then, from somewhere came a Colonel in a Naval uniform who stood amongst the soldiers and said:
“Listen to my command! Form a line of 40 armed men and go into the counter-attack!”
He pulled out a gun and we followed him. The Germans had come within 500 metres, and they thought that we were going to surrender. When we were only 40 metres away, they came to their sense and began to charge at us with bayonets. The fight was terrible... I was saved from death by a tall sailor who took a bayonet from a German that was directed for me.
The Germans retreateed from us for five kilometers and we returned to the strait. The men were running along the beach and thought about how to cross. I ran up to the Officer who said to me that he didn't intend to give up, undressed and then jumped into the water. I decided that I too, would not give up, took off my shirt, trousers and shoes, then walked into the cold water, diving and swimming several times. Six hundred metres from shore I heard all around me “Chik-Chik”, I realised that I was being fired upon, and went under the water. When I surfaced I estimated I was around 400 metres from the coast but I simply could not carry on swimming – through all of the accumulated fatigure and confusion. I thought, “Well, no one will even know where I drowned. I will be on the list of missing persons”. Then I heard a voice: “Doctor, swim to us!” I turned and saw two men on a raft and I croaked “I can't!” They then rowed up to me and pulled me onto their raft.
At around 3 that day, there were Messerschmitts appearing in the sky which began to shoot along the entire strait at our soldiers who were in the rafts. I began to think: “I didn't drown – So i'll be shot instead.” Then out of nowhere appeared our “Corn-Cobs” and our desperate pilots shot down a German plane and covered our rafts well into the evening. Then from across the strait, boats began to sail towards our rafts to collect our soldiers and take them to the port of Taman. On landing, I took a long look at the sea then stood up and walked barefoot to the specified site. I had to walk 35km. On arriving at the gathering point, the surviving personnel had to announce their arrival to the Regiment.
The Volga
On June 23rd the Germas lanched an offensive on Stalingrad. Our 457th Artillery Regiment was immediately thrown from the Taman, into the 62nd Army of General Chuikov and had our first battle near the village of Tsimlyansk, when a large group of Fascists had crossed the Don. The battle lasted for 3 days but the forces were unequal and the regiment suffered heavy losses. Under heavy artillery and mortar fire I had to crawl up to the wounded, to assist them and the seriously wounded, I had to pull them on a ground-sheet to cover at the bottom of the hill, to a large crater made by an exploded bomb, which was a relatively safe place. In this battle, 85 soldiers were wounded, 48 of them sent to hospitals and 37 refused to be hospitalised and continued to fire and strike at the German tanks and infantry. However, the enemy still broke through our defences and marched towards the city. All our machinery was destroyed by enemy aircraft.
The order was received to remove survivors of Stalingrad, to get new equipmemt and to redeploy the Regiment in the area of Mamaev Kurgan. On August 22nd the regimental headquarters were located on the right bank of the Volga, on the slope of the mound, a hundred metres from it's summit. The next day, the Nazi's dropped tons of bombs on residential homes, hospitals and oil storage tanks. Oil and petrol poured into the city, causing a huge fire. Hundreds of children and the elderly were killed and everywhere you could here the cries and groans of the wounded. The fighting was going street by street, house by house.
In late September, the Germans captured the mound. General Chuikov immediately gathered the commanders of all arms and ordered to take the strategic point in two days. Early in the morning, the massive bombardments and airstrikes began to fall on the accumulation of Fascist tanks and infantry. After that, the storm battalions, submachine gun platoons and anti-tank group went on the attack. Our soldiers and officers stepped over the corpses of fascists and clambered up the slippery slopes of Mamayev Kurgan under the bombs of enemy aircraft. The commanders of the storming units were often at the lead, with bloodied faces and tunics.. And on the second day, we took possession of the height. Then, 180 soldiers and officers needed medical care.
In October 1942, during the advance of our troops to the Germans positions, the unit commander, Colonel Ivanov came to me and said in confusion, that around 30 metres from us, was a wounded signalman. I dashed our towards the victim, and suddenly, an air raid began on our units positions. Then I began to crawl. Then I do not remember what happened... when he came round, he felt a headache and realized that he was alive. Standing beside the sergeant I said “Don't worry. Assistance has been provided to you.”. I realized that he had been confused by the blast and was wounded in legs by shrapnel from the bombs. On the third day, he could sit up and discharged himself from the hospital.
On February 2nd 1943, the commander of the fascust army of Paulus was completely surrounded. 91,000 soldiers were captured, taking 2,500 officers and 24 Generals, all led by Field Marshal Paulus. For military merits, our regiment was awarded the title “260th Guards”.
Guardsman Anatoly Kondra, for his military achievements was awarded the Order of the Red Star and the medals for the defense of Stalingrad and for Victory over Germany. In peacetime, he was awarded the medal for faultless service in the ministry of internal affairs and the badge “Excellent Health Service of the USSR”.