Tag #155306 - Interview #94498 (Evadiy Rubalskiy)

We fought in the south of Stalingrad, in Krasnoarmeysk, Volgograd region. This area had a strategic significance for the operative area of Stalingrad. The area was elevated and made an excellent observation point. Our battery was defending the town. Soon Stalingrad became a battlefield. [31] Our division was assigned to the 62nd army and we fought in the town with this army. I was a gun layer for a 76-mm front mortar in the first rows of rifle units and fired by direct laying. Our division was one of the first units to arrange transportation of the wounded to the opposite bank of the Volga on the rafts made by field engineers. We also hauled food and ammunition there. In the middle of September we were cut off the rear supplies of our regiment. My commanding officer ordered me to find a passage, when it got dark, to move our 3 mortars and the wounded from out of the barrage of the enemy. 2 other fellow comrades were to assist me. We fulfilled the task and came to the army 62 commandment point near the harbor. The battle was going on. Our cannons were camouflaged by the wall of a high ruined building. Few people were at the cannon and the others stayed in the nearby one-storied building. All of a sudden German planes attacked us. We had to go back to our unit and deliver a sealed letter containing an order and some food to the regiment commander. However, there was no way for us to fulfill this task. Germans cut off our passage, and there were already units of the 10th NKVD [32] divisions in defense on this site. They did not allow us to go through the passage to where our units were since our units might confuse us for the ones who wished to surrender and shoot us. Division 244 finished its combat actions in Stalingrad on 20 September 1942. Of over 4 thousand people at the beginning of combat operations it had 288 people left at the end, including maintenance and logistics people.