A quarter of a century after the war, in a deep forest near Vyazma, a BT tank with a clearly visible tactical number 12 was found buried in the ground. The hatches were battened down, and a hole gaped in the side. When the car was opened, the remains of a junior lieutenant tanker were found in the place of the driver. He had a revolver with one cartridge and a tablet, and in the tablet there was a map, a photograph of his beloved girl and unsent letters.
October 25, 1941
Hello, my Varya!
No, we will not meet with you.
Yesterday we smashed another Hitler column at noon. The fascist shell pierced the side armor and exploded inside. While I was driving the car into the forest, Vasily died. My wound is cruel.
I buried Vasily Orlov in a birch grove. It was light in it. Vasily died, without having time to say a single word to me, did not convey anything to his beautiful Zoya and white-haired Mashenka, who looked like a dandelion in fluff.
This is how one of the three tankers was left.
In the dark, I drove into the forest. The night passed in agony, a lot of blood was lost. Now, for some reason, the pain that burns through my entire chest has subsided and my soul is quiet.
It is very disappointing that we have not done everything. But we did our best. Our comrades will chase the enemy, who should not walk through our fields and forests. I would never have lived my life like this if it weren't for you, Varya. You have always helped me: on Khalkhin Gol and here.
Probably, after all, whoever loves is kinder to people. Thank you, dear! A person is getting old, and the sky is forever young, like your eyes, into which you can only look and admire. They will never grow old, never fade.
Time will pass, people will heal their wounds, people will build new cities, grow new gardens. Another life will come, other songs will be sung. But never forget the song about us, about the three tankers.
You will have beautiful children, you will still love.
And I am happy that I am leaving you with great love for you.
Your Ivan Kolosov
In the Smolensk region, near one of the roads, a Soviet tank with tail number 12 rises on a pedestal. During the first months of the war, junior lieutenant Ivan Sidorovich Kolosov, a career tanker who began his combat path from Khalkhin-Gol, fought on this machine.
The crew - commander Ivan Kolosov, mechanic Pavel Rudov and loader Vasily Orlov - resembled the characters of the song about three tankers popular in the pre-war period:
Three Tankmen three merry friends
- the crew of the combat vehicle …
The battles with the Nazis were fierce. The enemy paid for each kilometer of Soviet land with hundreds of corpses of his soldiers and officers, dozens of destroyed tanks, cannons, machine guns. But the ranks of our fighters also melted. At the beginning of October 1941, on the outskirts of Vyazma, eight of our tanks were frozen at once. The tank of Ivan Kolosov was also damaged. Pavel Rudov died, Kolosov himself was wounded. But the enemy was stopped.
With the onset of darkness, the engine was started, and tank 12 disappeared into the forest. We collected shells from the destroyed tanks and prepared for a new battle. In the morning we learned that the Nazis, having rounded this sector of the front, nevertheless advanced eastward.
What to do? Fight alone? Or leave the wrecked car and make your way to your own? The commander consulted with the loader and decided to squeeze everything that was possible from the tank and fight here, already in the rear, to the last shell, to the last drop of fuel.
On October 12, tank 12 escaped from an ambush, unexpectedly ran into an enemy column at full speed and scattered it. On that day, about a hundred Nazis were killed.
Then they fought eastward. On the way, tankers more than once attacked enemy columns and carts, and once crushed an "Opel-captain" in which some fascist authorities were traveling.
Came October 24 - the day of the last battle. Ivan Kolosov told his bride about him. He had a habit of regularly writing letters to Vara Zhuravleva, who lived in the village of Ivanovka, not far from Smolensk. Lived before the war …
In a wilderness forest, remote from the villages, they once stumbled upon a rusted tank, covered with thick paws of spruce and half sunk into the ground. Three dents in the frontal armor, a ragged hole in the side, prominent number 12. The hatch is tightly battened down. When the tank was opened, they saw the remains of a man at the levers - this was Ivan Sidorovich Kolosov, with a revolver with one cartridge and a tablet containing a map, a photograph of his beloved and several letters to her …
This story on the pages of the newspaper "Pravda" was told by E. Maksimov on February 23, 1971. They found Varvara Petrovna Zhuravleva and handed her letters written by Ivan Sidorovich Kolosov in October 1941.
