Václav Hajný

“What I remember most was when we were supplying our tanks. This was on the river Odra in the Ostrava region. The Russians penetrated inside beyond the Odra, the line was in a shape of a crescent, about five kilometres inward, I don’t know how wide this zone was. Our tanks were there. Our tanks did not always follow with our Czechoslovak army. It was not this way. There was a front commander, and he commanded where our tanks would go, even within our army. So our tanks were always going to assist the Russians. And when they then got behind the Odra river, we had to go to them bringing supplies. What a mess it was. There were pontoon bridges over the Odra. And there was a rush of Russian Gaz vehicles, and drivers with horse wagons who were supplying the Russian units which were behind the Odra. There had to be officers, lieutenants for example, who were organizing those transports, because there were trucks delivering in one direction and others returning back over the river, they would have crashed into each other. So those officers were keeping order there. We had to pass through this place, but it was no fun. The Germans were very keen on those pontoon bridges. Messerschmitts were flying there and firing at them all the time. You could see a driver with a horse wagon falling into the river. You could see the Germans dropping small bombs which damaged those bridges, you could see one part of a bridge torn off and being taken by the stream, and the other end protruding into the river. Sappers were instantly repairing them, but those were Russians, not ours. There had to be more of those bridges, to keep at least some of them passable. We had a hard time there. And when we passed over a bridge, we were not safe, either. It was a hot spot. The Germans could not stand it that we and the Russians built our positions there.”

“Then the Russians launched an enormous attack, including our infantrymen. I even saw some friends as they went past us, Bohouš Bohatý and Vláďa Pajer. Bohouš is no longer alive, I think, but Vláďa probably still is. They went over us and on the whole, the Russians seized the position well. We were still in our trenches, and we could see clearly how the wounded returned, how they were helping them and so on. But at first the Russians had made huge mortar and artillery preparation. To explain it: Nižní Komárník is down in a valley, up there there is some small field, and we are there at the border of a forest, the same on the other side of the valley, again, a patch of a field and a forest, and Germans in it. Before the attack was launched, the Russians tore the place to pieces with mortar and cannon shells. There were clouds of smoke, you could not even see the tress. The infantry then conquered the place quite easily.”

“I remember that during our first attack, we advanced quite far. We were near and they threw grenades at us. I was in a group with Březinský, he got his leg shot through immediately. Then there was a guy from Zdolbunov, he got hit by a bullet between his shoulder blades. Then Koblasa, he was a Czech from Bessarabia, a grenade hit his hip, and injured his right side. Only I was left unharmed. Not only us, of course, but the others from our skirmish line were also stopped from advancing. We took cover behind trees and we thought what to do next… Březinský with his injured leg was able to walk, Koblasa with that grenade splinter as well, but the last one, Sršeň, who got hit in his back, could not. We pulled him behind those trees. Then I pulled him for about ten or fifteen metres to get him out of immediate danger. The Germans did not attack us from those bunkers; they were just sitting there and waiting to shoot whomever they would spot. I then carried this Sršeň on my back for about five hundred metres to our first dressing station.”

“We were delivering food. This means bread, soup, and if available, also potatoes and some meat. Because the food was terrible. Russia was really not doing well. Although we were receiving food from England, the rations were reduced so much that we were doing as bad as the Russians. Take cows, for example. I was young, seventeen years, but I was not able to bite on this meat. It was tendon from some old cow, you could stretch the piece like this, but you could not eat it. We were being given eight hundred grams of this heavy rye bred with husks.”

“Nine of us remained, and then they kept sending us new soldiers. Of course, we seized the place, the Germans ran away. Then we were replaced by others, Germans launched a counterattack and pushed us back again. We did not manage to hold that position. I can tell you honestly, how I see it today, what might have been if we had only been braver. I have to confess what happened. We did not have to retreat, we were in trenches, we could have killed them, we had enough of grenades and everything, There was no lack of ammunition. But one person is enough to turn the situation. One person begins to flee, then another, a third one. Some of them were saying: ´Guys, come on, don’t do that.´ But one says, I won’t get myself killed, I don’t want to be taken captive. The Germans launched a short mortar fire. And we ducked our heads in the trenches. All of a sudden, the fire stops and grenades start flying, exploding next to your head, then sub-machine gun fire. The men lost their nerves and we ran away from there. And then we were seizing it back. I can tell you, that hill was terrible. There were eighty-five of us, and only nine of us have remained healthy, the others were wounded or killed.”

“No one can imagine that today anymore, when people are civilians and everybody has enough to eat, and can sleep peacefully. But there, how much you suffer, when you sleep on the ground and you do not know which day you will get killed, far away from your family. And it goes like this day by day. When I recall it, I always feel so thankful that I have got out of there alive, that I have survived. I always give thanks.”

“Whenever we got to our tanks, we would have to leave our truck in the back in some shrub or under trees. And we would put the hay-boxes with food on our backs, there was some soup or mush with bread in it, and we would walk to those tanks. I can still see it in front of my eyes. Tanks were neatly ordered in a firing position. We also had sub-machine gunners, who were riding on those tanks. What a drudgery it was! They had to ride on those tanks and then jump down when they approached their trenches. This was worse than infantry. Many of those sub-machine gunners died. When they were in defence, they had holes dug out under their tanks, because the Germans were firing at them all the time. And the soldiers from that tank all crawled into those holes. And when they saw us, they were happy that we brought them food, and that’s the way it was there.”

“I desired so much to be at home, and it was not only me, but everyone on our train. As soon as I came home, I experienced great disappointment at having left from there, I regretted I have not stayed here. Over there, the poverty was terrible, women left without husbands, agriculture devastated. No grain had been sown, fields were overgrown with grass. So I wanted to go back to Bohemia. I could not recognize my home anymore, I did not like it there anymore. I wanted to return to Czechoslovakia.”

“I desperately wanted to get to the truck unit. As a boy I was crazy about cars. And now imagine, our entire column in formation, with our kit-bags, and my commander of the 3rd battalion, major Tesařík, with a band over his eye, what a warrior he was... These Tesařík brothers, popular singers today, are his sons. So their father was my commander, he commanded the 3rd tank battalion. At that time there were already about fifteen thousand of us, that was already a nice army. And Tesařík says: ´Boys, I need twenty-five of you for trucks and armoured vehicles.´ And I thought, this sounds good, I hope to get in. But he was pointing at other guys, obviously at the older men, who would be able to go to the trucks and armoured vehicles unit. When he had selected about eighteen of them, I could not stand it anymore, I summoned my courage, I was a young boy, and I raised my hand: ´What would you like?´ ´Major, I would like so much to be a driver in the truck unit, too.´ ´How old are you?´ I say: ´Seventeen.´ ´Aren’t you ashamed, you would let these fathers jump in and out of tanks and you yourself would be riding in a car?´ I felt so let down, and I thought, well, it’s over. But he was still selecting people, first one, second one, third one, and he still did not have twenty-five of them. I was not even looking in that direction; I did not want to follow it anymore. And suddenly I hear: ´Hey, you over there!´ I raised my head and looked whom he was calling. ´Yes, you, come here, too.´ I picked up my rucksack and all my gear and I was among them. This way I got into the training course as a driver of a Studebaker. I still have that driving licence written in Russian alphabet and with a Czech stamp.”