"Since October 1943 until 1944, I was present on the front line. All the trees were without branches and leaves; everything was destroyed by grenade fire. When we began to move, I saw for the first time a civilian. I felt strange; maybe I was ashamed or afraid of him ... All the time, I saw people wearing the same clothing and suddenly a man in civilian clothes. It was a psychological turning point for me - the moment I saw him, I was scared."
"We united with the army in October 1943. Immediately, I was sent to a school for junior intelligence officers of the 12th reserve battalion. I spent something less than three months there. In December, we were already sent to the front line."
"At the beginning of the Bagration operation, we got a task. Me, three other intelligence officers and a sapper were supposed to eliminate German firing positions in Bychov, which was on the other side of the Dnieper River. The Germans fired flares from their positions that illuminated the sky above the river and the surrounding area. We had a small boat on which we got to the other side. Not far from the cemetery was a concrete building where bombs were exploding. It was probably a munitions stockpile that had been blown up by our artillery. So I told the boys that we might pass between the cemetery and the exploding stockpile. The Germans would certainly not be there. Through this corridor, we got into the town. It was night. The sapper began searching for land mines so that we could pass safely. But it was taking too long. So we decided to step on the vegetable beds in the hope that there would be no mines hidden there. The risky action paid off. Then, we found some tracks in the ground left behind by a tank and we walked in them, not putting our feet a single step aside. We came to the city. To the left there was heavy fire, to the right a train station, but in the middle, it was calm and we were in the middle. We could already see the firing positions illuminating the Dnieper. We gave them a burst of machine-gun fire. Nobody returned the fire."
Mr. Anatoly Tikhonovich Stanchenko was born in 1925 in the village of Počepy in the Mogilev region in Belarus. After the occupation in 1942, he was deported to Germany to work. However, he managed to escape from captivity. Since 1943, he was a guerrilla fighter in Suvorov‘s unit. In that same year, the guerilla troop teamed up with the advancing Red Army. Mr. Stanchenko subsequently acted as a military spy in the Bychovská area. The sabotage group that Mr. Stanchenko was a member of, crossed the Dnieper River, eliminated the German firing positions and thus prepared the ground for the advancing troops of the Soviet Army. He graduated from the school of junior intelligence officers. He then served in a special intelligence unit of the 3rd army. Since 1944, he served as an intelligence officer of the 1208th Rifle Regiment of the 362nd Upper-Dnieper Division. In the same year, he suffered the already fourth serious injury, was hospitalized and then demobilized. Mr. Anatoly Tikhonovich Stančenko was awarded the Order of the Great Patriotic War I. degree, the Medal of the Guerrilla of the Great Patriotic War I. degree and the medals for bravery and military merit. After the war, he lived in Mogilev. He died in 2006.
