Pyotr Bograd and commanding officers on the front

This photograph was taken in early 1942, in the vicinity of Lodeynoye Field in the north of Russia where we were fighting with Finns.

I (the 2nd from the left, with a compass and maps), was assistant commanding officer of a battalion of an infantry regiment. Commanding officers and I are working on the plan of an offensive.

The senior battalion commissar is the first from left. His surname is Krivich (I do not remember his name, but his patronymic was Kuzmich). He was born in Ukraine in the 1910s. In 1943 he was transferred to paratroopers. I do not know what happened to him later on.

Captain Pavel Obshivnev, my deputy, is the third from left. He was born in 1910 in the Middle East . He became a colonel in Magadan after the war. Senior sergeant Tarasenko, assistant to the head of the regiment on cipher, is next to him (standing, 2nd from right). I know he survived war, that is all I know.

Sitting, first from right is a clerk, sergeant Rodimov. He also survived the war. I do not know what happened to him afterwards. I sent this photo to my parents from the front.

I took part in the Great Patriotic War from its very beginning. On 16th October 1941, when panic started in Moscow, Stalin ordered the formation of an officer battalion and sent it to Klin. There were minor collisions.

Later I was ordered to move to Tihvin where I took part in combat action. Then I moved to Lodeynoye Field. I was a battalion commanding officer there. We took our defense, and then I fought south of Lake Ladoga.

When the 'Road of Life' was constructed, we patrolled it on skis. Then we relocated to the Transpolar area. We fought near Kandalaksha, took part in the defeat of a German grouping in this area.

Then we were assigned to the second Ukrainian Front near Bucharest. Then we relocated to the vicinity of Budapest to the third Ukrainian Front. Then we were near Pecs, when Germans struck a blow there.

At the end of the war I was on the border of Austria and Yugoslavia in the direction of Zagreb.

The hardest combat actions were between 1941 and 1942. When we were retreating, I can't remember what we ate or where we slept.
We were depressed. This was the hardest period.