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Viktor Leonov

I spoke to the Germans in Russian

"Our unit, operating behind enemy lines, was always outnumbered, and the enemy always had an edge over us in hardware," Leonov says, "But we always won hand-to-hand fights. Neither the Germans nor the Japanese acted as decisively as we did. It is a law of psychology: In a fight, one of the opponents eventually gives up."

One of the most celebrated operations of Leonov's unit was their capture of 3,500 Japanese soldiers and officers in the Korean port of Vonsan.

- There were 140 of us. We landed on the Japanese airfield, completely unexpected, and started talking. Ten of us were taken by the Japanese to a colonel's headquarters. He was the commander of a Japanese air force unit, and wanted to keep us as hostages. I joined the conversation when I felt that our command representative, Captain 3rd Rank Kulebyakin, was, as they say, driven into a corner. I looked the Japanese straight in the eyes. I told him we've been fighting in the West throughout the whole war, and WERE experienced enough to evaluate the situation for ourselves. We were not going to be taken hostage. We would rather die, I said, along with everybody else in the HQ building. The only difference, I told him, was that they would all die like rats while we tried to break out of there! Right then Mitya Sokolov, a Hero of Soviet Union, stood up behind the Japanese colonel's chair. The other guys also knew what to do. Andrey Pshenichnych locked the door, put the key in his pocket and sat down on a chair. Volodya Olyashin, who became a professional athlete after the war, lifted Andrey - together with the chair - and put him right in front of the colonel. Ivan Guzenkov walked to the window and reported that we were not too high, while another Hero of Soviet Union, Semen Agafonov, stood at the door and began tossing an anti-tank grenade in the air. (The Japanese did not know the grenade was missing a fuse.) The colonel, having forgotten his handkerchief, started wiping the sweat from his forehead with his hand, and after a while he signed an order for the garrison to surrender.

- We formed up the 3,500 prisoners in a column, eight people in a line. At that point they were running to fulfill my orders. We didn't have enough men to escort such a large formation, so I had the colonel and his chief of staff ride in my car. I said, "If a single soldier tries to escape, you will only have yourselves to blame..." By the time we encountered friendly troops there were almost 5,000 Japanese soldiers in the column.

Senior seaman Viktor Leonov was awarded the "For Bravery" medal after the fighting of the summer 1941, in which he was badly wounded by a mine fragment. After the very first fight, when his friend (they joined the unit together) was killed, Leonov started to think - how do I go on in this war?

- In the fall of 1942 we launched a raid against the German garrison on cape Mogilny, which was observing our planes and ships. It started very unsuccessfully. Both the commanding and political officers of the supporting infantry unit were later court-martialed and executed for sloppiness and negligence. Petty officer 2nd grade Leonov led the assault with a small group of scouts. The assault was successful, and the German strong point was destroyed, but 15 marines ended up pinned down on a small spot (the widest part of the cape was less than 150 meters). German Gebirgsjaegers (specially equipped and trained mountain troops) surrounded them in a double ring, cutting off the retreat route with a pair of machine guns. The rocks around them were cracking from mortar shelling.

The Germans were in a hurry to finish the job before darkness. One of the marines, a man who understood German, overheard this. But the Marines were running out of ammo. One of them shouted, "That's it! We can't make it out of here!" --and blew himself up with a hand grenade. Another one wanted to do the same. "You coward!" Leonov said to him. "Drop the grenade or I'll shoot you!"

- We were pinned down by those two machine guns, which were firing the whole time. I had to do something. I jumped up and fired my last bullets at the rock which the machine-gunners were using for cover. I wanted them to duck and stop firing. Then one of our best men, Semen Agafonov rushed toward the rock, which was some 20 metres away. He managed to jump up onto the rock and then he jumped right onto the Germans! When I, wounded in a leg, made it to the scene, one machine-gunner was already dead and Semen was rolling on the ground, wrestling with the other two. I hit the Germans over the head one after another with a butt-stock. We seized those machine guns and broke out.

Agafonov was believed to be fearless. When asked about this episode, he would say with laughter that when he saw the Germans' hands were shaking, he realized they would miss if they shot. But when talking to his close friends, he confessed that the moment he received the order from Leonov, he thought his career in the war was over... Everybody was fearful, but you had to act promptly.

- After that, Yuri Micheev blew up a German bunker with an amazingly precise, long-range grenade-pack throw at some 20 metres range. That was the last grenade pack we had. The grenades were still in the air, and Yuri was already dead, cut down by a machine gun. But we broke through the second line and proceeded to the shore through a canyon. Heavy snowfall hid our footprints. Agafonov was covering the retreat, he had three bullets in his pistol, and I had few also... We hid ourselves in bushes at the shore. Several times a line of German Gebirgsjaegers passed right by us as we hid, gripping our knives' hilts. We waited a long time for ships to pick us up. Eventually two vessels arrived, noticed our signals and picked us up from Mogilny.

Leonov was promoted to the rank of junior lieutenant, appointed the unit's political officer, and later became the commander of the unit. He received his first Golden Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union for the unit's largest operation, which was carried out in November, 1944. Prior to the start of the major offensive in the North, the unit was ordered to destroy a German strong point of strategic importance on Cape Krestovy.

- This time we didn't manage to catch the enemy napping. At the very last moment, when we were some 30 or 40 metres from German bunkers, their alarm system went off. Germans spotted us and opened fire with machine guns and cannons. The whole scene was illuminated, and we had a strong barbed wire obstacle in front of us. I gave the order: Do what you can in this situation, operate in small groups. But in one minute I want you ALL on that battery...

- Ivan Lysenko, a wrestling champion from Urals and the strongest man in the unit, was the one who saved us from heavy losses. He tore the hedgehog that was holding the barbed wire out of the ground and lifted it on his shoulders. We rushed into the passage that he made. When Lysenko could no longer stand - more than twenty bullets had hit him - our medic Alexey Lupov helped him. (Don't look for any cynical irony...he helped Ivan hold the hedgehog...). They both died, but we made it to the covering battery and, having captured the guns, opened fire on the enemy, for we knew German hardware pretty well.

- The enemy sensed our power. I remember, in the very beginning of the war, we captured a German officer. I had already changed my clothes. And I saw our intelligence officer running out of the room, where they were interrogating the German, and he said to me: "What a jerk! He doesn't say a thing, he's just laughing at us."
"He's gonna talk..." I said. I went and changed back to the uniform that I had on when I captured the guy. I walked into the room and saw the German sitting with his legs crossed and smoking. I told the translator: "Tell this bastard (I think he actually used a stronger word - Valera) that these admirals are leaving soon, and it's OK if they don't find out what they want now...because he's gonna stay here alone with me." Then I just turned around and walked out of the room. The German started to speak... I spoke to Germans in Russian, and they could understand me better than they could understand others in German.

- Admiral Golovko issued an order - "The unit commander has a right to select his own scouts." So they couldn't appoint anyone into my unit. I had good connections with the personnel department, and they were sending guys that fit in well. I interviewed them, and observed how they reacted to my questions. The most crucial thing for me was an interviewee's hands and eyes. When you look at a person's hands, you have insight into his psychological condition, his personality. I wanted guys with hands not grabbing everything... ready for action, yet calm at the same time...

- My first order after I became the unit's commander was to keep the Special Department representative (NKVD officer) out of the unit. Because otherwise it would be like this: We come back from a raid, and he sits in the office, and starts scrutinizing all the guys one by one, asking how the others behaved during the raid. If you want to find out - just join us! in the fight everyone is transparent.

After that came the second order. By that time I knew almost all of the informers in the unit, because they were recruiting me, and I said "no" to the deal. I gathered them all and told them: "Write whatever you want, think up any imaginable illness... but I want all of you out of here in 24 hours." That's how I got rid of them. After that the member of the Military Council told me, "They will arrest you any time soon". I answered, "And what are you here for?" He said, "They can make decisions over my head..." Now I knew. This is how these same guys put Lunin, later a famous submarine captain, in jail. I said, "I don't need you to protect me. Just tell me when it's almost time -- and then drop me in Norway, I can command my unit from there. Let them try to get me out there!" He just laughed and said, "Wow, you're quite an adventurist." But when the unit needed help, he did his best.

- Actually, we were all one family. Like the time we carried Lieutenant Fedor Shelavin from Cape Mogilny... He was the reason we stayed there; both of his legs were wounded. He wanted to shoot himself... to lighten our hands. But I knew - if we abandoned Shelavin, on the next raid someone would have thought, "That's it, if we've abandoned a wounded commanding officer, I would be abandoned for sure." If this thought gets into a soldier's head, he can't fight. He's not a real fighter anymore. This thought will persecute and depress you, whether you want it or not.

From the day Leonov became a commander until the end of the war, his unit had 9 KIAs - 7 of them at the barbed wire obstacle on Cape Krestovy.

- I always hated to lose people. Ask anyone.They all knew I would fight for every man's life until the end.