Tag #154456 - Interview #97841 (Hertz Rogovoy )

I remember one battle. We were brought together, the entire platoon of 45 people and were given 3 gun machines, each weighing 62 kilos, 32 out of them was the weight of the machine with rollers, and theoretically it could be rolled. But when we were crawling, it was impossible to roll the machine, we had to drag it. Barrel was another part of the gun-machine, and it had to be filled with water for cooling the gun. It was a famous gun-machine, the main weapon of World War I and the Great Patriotic War. The advantage was in its heavy weight that made it steady for precision fire. We were shown a semi-destroyed building, and were ordered to crawl there, set the gun-machines and not to let the Germans in the building. The latter could not even be called a house, because only walls remained from it. The house could be left without the order of the commander. At that time Stalin’s order № 227 as of 1942 was enforced ’No retreat’. And according to the latter the so-called defensive squadrons were formed, which were to follow regular troops, and start fire if there were any attempt to retreat. That is why there was no way we could leave that house. Almost all of us were lean and emaciated boys, weighing not more that 45 kilos. It was unbearably hard for us to carry the parts of a machine-gun, each of them weighting a little bit less than each of us. But we could not violate the order, especially if it was fortified by the defense squadrons. We were able to stay in that house either 5 or 6 days, I do not remember for sure. By that time 2 or 3 of our gun-machines had been crashed. 7 people remained alive out of 45. Then we ran out of cartridges for our gun-machine. Then we ran out food and water. Then the mortar bomb hit the house, and our last gun was destroyed.  The shell hit the gun jacket, where the water for cooling was filled, and we remain unarmed. We could not go back, there was no communication, and we could not get the order to retreat. What were we supposed to do?